Who knows. He will get 100% support to try and make it work.

I think the questions that are going to determine how this goes are:

A) How well does the coach the x's and o's at first? He's going to get some dudes for the first couple of years, so how much can he develop them/coach them/get them to play together/etc? Like are they going to just be pretty good, or are they really good?

but then

B) How well does he recruit after his ties to the AAU scene start to dry up?

I could easily see this being a situation where they're really good for a few years, but then they start to come back down. Having close AAU ties can kick start a college coach, but after that you're still playing the same game as everyone else and a lot of them have more experience doing it.

But we'll see, maybe he'll be great. Good on Memphis to go for it.

Josh Pastner was an AAU legend and coached there with mixed results

At least Memphis is trying to get better at the coaching spot. Wish we would try that.

MarcAg said:

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Hopefully works out better for Memphis.

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Why?

I think it is a brilliant hire.

I think Penny will always recruit well in Memphis. Yes, he has the ties to the current AAU players but he is absolutely a hero in Memphis. He is from there, he is the best basketball player to ever come out of there, he came back to live there, he invested his money there, he owns a barbershop there, he built a $20 million rec facility there, he coached middle school basketball there, he completely controls grass roots basketball there, he built Team Penny into one of the top youth basketball programs in the country. He is a legend there and it is irrelevant if Memphis kids remember seeing him play in the NBA or not.

The key to success at Memphis is recruiting Memphis. If he regularly gets most of the top players from Memphis they will be a consistent top 20 program. Tubby Smith was a complete disaster there because he refused to embrace Memphis. Penny on the other hand, IS the embodiment of Memphis basketball.

I don't really see the analogy to Clyde at all. Maybe if you combined Clyde and John Lucas it would be something similar but still the two situations are just completely different. Houston is an economically vibrant city that brings in people from all over America and the world. Completely different mentality than a "left behind" city like Memphis that doesn't have nearly as much to hang its civic pride on besides its home town heroes that embrace the city in the way that Penny has.

The fans going crazy is similar but that's it. Penny is a coach. Again maybe not at this level, but is a real coach. Drexler being hired was like doing a bit.

I still just don't like this general trend of hiring guys without college coaching experience. I know that for certain schools it might make sense for one reason or another, but I just don't like it as a general trend.

I'm not crazy about hires like this either. I just think it's vastly different than Drexler or even Mullen. I think Memphis was so badly fractured and the Tubby hire was such a bad fit.

Yeah, like I get it for Memphis. I also kind of get it for Georgetown. The game is the game, I just don't particularly care for it.

And both Georgetown and Memphis are again hiring coaches. Mullen and Drexler and Holberg had never coached. Yes it's a jump and both might fail in spectacular fashion. I kind of am enjoying seeing Calipari's formal school put a damper on his recruiting plans.

I'm pretty sure Mullen was a coach on the court.

mdanyc03 said:

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I think it is a brilliant hire.

I think Penny will always recruit well in Memphis. Yes, he has the ties to the current AAU players but he is absolutely a hero in Memphis. He is from there, he is the best basketball player to ever come out of there, he came back to live there, he invested his money there, he owns a barbershop there, he built a $20 million rec facility there, he coached middle school basketball there, he completely controls grass roots basketball there, he built Team Penny into one of the top youth basketball programs in the country. He is a legend there and it is irrelevant if Memphis kids remember seeing him play in the NBA or not.

The key to success at Memphis is recruiting Memphis. If he regularly gets most of the top players from Memphis they will be a consistent top 20 program. Tubby Smith was a complete disaster there because he refused to embrace Memphis. Penny on the other hand, IS the embodiment of Memphis basketball.

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Yeah I tend to agree. Put yourself in the position of Memphis fans - I would absolutely be excited.

YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT MARK AG.

Memphis adding Mike Miller. A person without a college degree, but is " working on one." So now we add people working on degrees.

Penny will always be awesome just because of Lil Penny

One player-coach that I expect to actually do very well is Ewing.

Maybe we should just hire Shaq.

McNuggets said:

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One player-coach that I expect to actually do very well is Ewing.

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it will be interesting to see how he does. The fact that he couldn't get an nba gig after a decade on the bench is a bit of a concern.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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McNuggets said:

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One player-coach that I expect to actually do very well is Ewing.

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it will be interesting to see how he does. The fact that he couldn't get an nba gig after a decade on the bench is a bit of a concern.

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I wasn't sure about this hire either but after seeing some of his games this year, if he can get talent to come to Georgetown, he may do a good job.

Mikesyracuse1

I think it's a good indicator that they are getting a huge deal on Penny.

They were paying Tubby $3 mm/year, with 3 years remaining.
With the fire, they stretch that to $1.5mm over 6 years.

Penny's contract is reportedly $1.5 mm/year, so they are paying 2 coaches what they were paying the 1.

Also, the proverbial word on the street is Penny has asked Larry Brown to be the assistant coach.

Larry Brown has said (reportedly), he's open to it.

The administration in Memphis is having some concerned discussions about bringing LB on staff.

There are a couple of other differences between Clyde and Penny's situation that haven't been mentioned. One is the size of the cities that they are "legends" in. It takes an hour and half to drive across the Houston area. Most high school kids only knowledge of Clyde at the time was he was a hell of a player for Portland and "didn't he play with the Dream at some point?". Penny is known all across Memphis on a personal basis due to his coaching there still and the much smaller size of the city. Penny can probably go by every major Memphis basketball power in a day. Also the city of Houston was cranked out a lot of high level NBA talent. Penny has pretty much been The Guy for Memphis for this generation.

Also, Penny was always a much more marketable persona. Even though Clyde was the better basketball player, he never got the endorsements or attention that Penny got. A large part of that was Shaq playing in Orlando, but Penny certainly capitalized. His charisma could play out big on the recruiting front.

clyde is such a lazy comparison. they hired him to recruit. something drex never did. end of story.

oh, he also has actually coached young hoopstars before.

Uncle Gunnysack said:

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clyde is such a lazy comparison. they hired him to recruit. something drex never did. end of story.

oh, he also has actually coached young hoopstars before.

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Actually it's not lazy at all. Both were nba stars, with no collegiate coaching experience, hired by their slam mater, and all the fans went crazy.

They hired him to recruit? Not to coach? Penny recruiting for his AAU team is hardly the same as recruiting for college. So actually you just made another comparison that is similar.

Nobody said he will fail like Drexler.
But to say it's no comparison is lazy by you.

Yea it's lazy as Penny has coached unlike Clyde Drexler. And Penny is majorly involved in Memphis and has deep recruiting ties. Drexler hadn't been involved in Houston basketball in a long time. Had no coaching experience or coaching ties.

Heisenberg01 said:

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There are a couple of other differences between Clyde and Penny's situation that haven't been mentioned. One is the size of the cities that they are "legends" in. It takes an hour and half to drive across the Houston area. Most high school kids only knowledge of Clyde at the time was he was a hell of a player for Portland and "didn't he play with the Dream at some point?". Penny is known all across Memphis on a personal basis due to his coaching there still and the much smaller size of the city. Penny can probably go by every major Memphis basketball power in a day. Also the city of Houston was cranked out a lot of high level NBA talent. Penny has pretty much been The Guy for Memphis for this generation.

Also, Penny was always a much more marketable persona. Even though Clyde was the better basketball player, he never got the endorsements or attention that Penny got. A large part of that was Shaq playing in Orlando, but Penny certainly capitalized. His charisma could play out big on the recruiting front.

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Can you give a list of all the high level NBA talent the city of Houston has cranked out?

Obviously Clyde's the best of them all, but guys like Rashard Lewis, Jimmy Butler, DeAndre Jordan, Stephen Jackson, Emeka Okafor, DJ Augustin, Dwight Jones, Chris Birdman Andersen, BJ Ford, and Booby Gibson are no slouches. A lot more talent than Memphis has pumped out.

I'll hang up and listen...

Young Houstonians in the league... Kelly Oubre, Justise Winslow, Andrew Harrison...

Heisenberg01 said:

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Obviously Clyde's the best of them all, but guys like Rashard Lewis, Jimmy Butler, DeAndre Jordan, Stephen Jackson, Emeka Okafor, DJ Augustin, Dwight Jones, Chris Birdman Andersen, BJ Ford, and Booby Gibson are no slouches. A lot more talent than Memphis has pumped out.

I'll hang up and listen...

Young Houstonians in the league... Kelly Oubre, Justise Winslow, Andrew Harrison...

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Stephen Jackson, Chris Andersen, and DJ Augustin? How on Earth are you claiming those guys?!

Memphis has Penny, Lorenzen Wright, Branden Wright, Thaddeus Young, Bingo Smith, and several other young guys in the league.

I'm not saying it's "better" than what Houston has produced, but Memphis has a very rich history in basketball, produces lots of good/great players, and is more than just Penny Hardaway.