It’s more nuanced than that. Leffew committed and then screwed us over. Red did not bring in Carlos to be a starter and that’s a fact. Leffew’s double-cross forced the issue.
So how does this works?
This is a pretty delusional take. You aren’t going to get all of your top targets every year. Also, players get hurt. Red chose to give Lampkin the big pay day and build around Bell. The roster was terribly constructed. Gotta stop making excuses for Red
and somehow player back paddling, kids changing their minds, in season injuries, insufficient NIL funding are issues unique to Syracuse.
It's not like that at all. Even if it was, I would still expect to see some basic coaching acumen on display come game time. As far as I can see, Red is a dumpster fire on every level except the personality he puts forward in public; no player development, no Xs and Os, no plan or game prep in evidence the vast majority of the time, etc. At times on the bench he looks like he wants to be there even less than many of the players do. Also, SU was terrible WITH Starling.
Last I saw, he's coming off the bench at Georgia. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Red or the program that we lost a guy who was promised to start here to come off the bench at traditional basketball powerhouse Georgia.
Maybe he'd be killing it at SU. And I know he was sought after by a slew of big time programs. So I'm not trying to diminish the guy.
Did I say that? What’s unique is blaming Red for any of those things, as they are outside his control.
I admit that I don't follow recruiting or the portal all that closely. But the way Leffew is talked about here I figured I'd look up his stats season-to-date and see that he's crushing it.
NIL is inside his control. He had a year to get the fund where he needed it. And he didn't hustle to do that. That has to be on him.
This doesn’t have to be a debate over the following:
They paid him more.
I think it was starting at SU for 400k v. bench at Georgia for 600k (could be slightly off). If our NIL isn't going to be top tier, we need a coach who can close on that type of portal recruit. One is too small of a sample size and maybe his 100% sole concern was NIL, but it's something to monitor when assessing our coach. And if our coach can't do that, he better be a really good in game coach.
You're right, a reductionist approach here is appropriate. All of those situations are on Red, one way or another. Hitching our wagon to Starling could be its own spirited debate; that alone shows far the program has fallen.
Leffew's eFG% and TS% are both top-100 among guys who have played at least 40% of available minutes. He's played 63.5% despite not starting. He's also shooting 41.5% from deep. We'll see what happens come SEC play but I'd take that over Carlos, Cuffe too even though I like him.
What I gather is that by this summer he finally realized he had to actually ask for money (probably brought on by the Leffew and Lampkin situations). But that he wasn't doing that during his first year on the job.
I'm not comparing him to Carlos and Cuffe. Its obviously better. I'm saying his defense stinks...hence why a guy who shoots 42% from 3 doesnt start. And that seems to be a trend when selecting our guys. Defense is being completely ignored
Would you take less money for a bigger role and more work?
Yep. We should have paid him.
