Pete Thamel: John Calipari was 'in tenuous state' with Kentucky fans

Late Sunday evening, news broke that Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari would leave for Arkansas in a rather surprising move, which ESPN’s Pete Thamel believes is good for both parties.

Monday morning on ESPN, Get Up played a clip from Thamel, who broke down why the move makes sense for both Calipari and Kentucky after a tenuous last few seasons in Lexington.

“John Calipari was on solid contractual ground at Kentucky owed $33 million if they were going to fire him. But he was in a tenuous state with the fanbase,” said Thamel.

Now, instead of running it back with an angry fanbase for one more season following a half-decade worth of failures, Calipari gets to embrace an entirely new fanbase while Kentucky fans can kick-start the coaching search they’ve wanted since the Oakland loss.

“What he did was run to open arms at Arkansas,” added Thamel. “It’s a great reboot for both sides. Kentucky gets to go and chase a Billy Donovan, they get to go and maybe they’ll throw a bunch of money at Dan Hurley if he wins tomorrow night.

“They get to go try to live out their biggest dreams and John Calipari gets to go to a proud program with Final Four/National Championship pedigree and resell his vision, resell his image, resell his brand to a completely new audience that is hungry to win.”

What a wild turn of events. Just a couple weeks ago, SMU fired their coach, kick-starting a chain reaction where they hired USC’s Andy Enfield, with the Trojans hiring Eric Musselman away from Arkansas, who has now hired Calipari from Kentucky. And now, Kentucky, will likely hire their own huge name head coach, likely creating a further chain of coaching searches across the sport.

According to a report from Jeff Goodman, Calipari will receive around $7.5-8 million per season in Fayetteville. That is only slightly less than the $8.5 million per year he made as the Wildcats’ coach.

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ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported earlier that Calipari signed a five-year contract with Arkansas. That would put the total value of the deal somewhere in the $37.5-40 million range. Reports also suggest Calipari has plenty of incentives that, if he meets, would pay him more than the Kentucky contract.