The Truth about Kanter, Calipari, and Marcus Camby

According to Calipari, we'll know in a few weeks on the status of Enes Kanter. Pete Thamel's second attempt to bring down the Cats taught us nothing new that we already didn't know. We've known for months that Kanter played on a semi-professional team since he was fourteen and received money. This is old news. We've known about this for months and we've known that Calipari and the University have been honest and upfront about the situation with the NCAA.

Kentucky didn't even play Kanter on the Canadian exhibition trip because they were waiting for the NCAA to make a decision on his eligibility. Media outlets across the country have made misleading headlines on this story leading people to believe the situation was a lot worse and insinuating that Calipari and Kentucky are involved in a scandal. That couldn't be any further from the truth as they have been working with the NCAA for months on this issue. In fact, the NCAA is even considering new rules that would make it easier for European players who have received similar benefits at a young age the chance to play college basketball in America.

It's also important to note that the Turkish team making these claims has an incentive for Kanter to not be elibile at UK. If Kanter is ruled ineligible, Kanter would have to either return to Turkey or be signed by another European or NBA team. If another professional team signs him, the Turkish team will receive loyalties for his services. They receive nothing if he plays for UK. Another note of importance is that Kanter never signed any professional contract and the team did not disclose any "financial statements" to Pete Thamel when he asked them to as he actually had the audacity to travel to Turkey to report this "story". Thamel has also been accused of misrepresenting quotes in the article.

Perhaps, Kanter could miss a number of games this year but could be eligible by the end of the season. Last season, John Wall missed just one regular season game as he paid back money he received from an AAU coach to help him pay for college visits. Regardless to the ruling, UK has done the right thing every step of the way to ensure that Kanter is eligible before even allowing him to play in summer exhibition games. The Cats also played very well without him in Canada and look to have an entertaining team with or without Kanter. Enes' future is also not on the line, as NBA Draft experts project him as a top pick even if he goes back and plays in Europe for a year.

Meanwhile, Marcus Camby is being honored in Amhurst this weekend on his first visit back to UMass. Camby has paid back the revenue the University lost from the 1996 NCAA Vacated Final Four and he is being inducted into the UMass Hall of Fame. He's taken full responsibility for his mistakes. In an exerpt from an article in the Hampshire Daily Gazette, Camby says, "The poor decision I made, it was definitely disappointing, not just for me but for the entire university. When I went through that, I couldn't blame anybody but myself. When that stuff was going on, no one knew about it, no one at the university, none of my coaches ...or teammates. I thought the only right thing for me to do was own up to my mistakes."

Unfortunately, people don't want to know what really happened; they just want to think what they would like to think as true, or whatever is most convenient for them to believe. This is true in politics, business, and sports...especially when John Calipari and Kentucky are involved. John Calipari has a clean record, Sandy Bell is the best complaince director in the nation, the rest of the world is against UK, but clearly, the unbiased and rational people out there know that Kentucky has nothing to worry about.