Just had a lengthy conversation with my guys.
I'll start with the first two topics that I know we are most interested in.
RJ and Deshayne to the portal.
Tough loss to lose RJ, this was a guy that I said was 50/50 on entering the portal but I honestly thought we would be able to keep him, however it turns out we could not. Seems as if both sides could not come to an NIL deal rework and just the vision they had was best fit. A team that I heard was in the sweepstakes was actually Clemson pushing hard for him again, however lets see how that goes.
Deshayne is gone. Saw that, called that. The information I have now however tells me that he was actually told to hit the portal by staff. Just overall was not working out with his on the court play and off the court behavior. It is always a good sign when a staff has the ability and confidence to tell players to walk away, means we won't settle for mediocrity and know we can bring in an upgrade.
I won't speak much else on it but was told that Silas was asking for 1.2 million dollars. A number we could have matched, but would have been expensive and counter-offered by NCST. Silas has not completely cut ties with our camp, but his dad and agent are pushing hard for him to either commit to a P4 in North Carolina (UNC or NCST or maybe even Duke) or go pro.
Confirmed from my source that I can talk on with 100% certainty, our NIL budget for basketball is 6-7 million dollars this offseason. This firmly puts us in a place to pay to win. The higher ends of budgets will float around 10 million dollars, so we might not be the top tier of NIL packages but we are going to be very competitive going forward.
Now lets hit on the transfer portal, where we are going to spend that money. Jayden Pierre, the Providence guard who was in for a visit today, I am going to call it early from what I am being told. He will be out first commit. He is being offered around 750k from our NIL collection. I have mixed feelings about this move. As a player who seemed to be pushed out of town in Providence, and definitely struggled last year, I would advise you guys to watch up on him, but it seems like we are trying to "find a Silas clone". While they on paper may seem to play similar, Pierre is a much worse shooter, not as good of a finisher, is ball dominant and likes a lot of high ball screens like Silas did, but is not as efficient out of these sets, and is not a good transition player. It seems like the only things he excels in is he is a better playmaker and a respectable athlete. I am hoping he is just a backup PG, where that seems like his best role, back up P4 PG, but with that price tag this might be our starter at the 1 guard next year, we will see.
Other names to monitor I got officially confirmed. Jeremiah Wilkinson (California), Malik Reanu (Indiana), Tae Davis (Notre Dame), Darron Reid (Alabama). Mike White and staff are pushing heavily to return GA HS talent to the program to better set up connections with GA HS's. A big push and incentive for him to keep his job moving forward is to establish good recruiting roots in the state.
Oh yeah last piece of information for now. No word from Somto yet on what the plan is going forward. Conversations have stopped as Somto has yet to to come back to us with an NIL offer yet. Seems like him and his camp are mulling things over for what the best move for him or simply just what his starting asking price should be. So does not mean we are out of the running to keep him here at all, but also does not mean just because he has not left yet he is staying. This is something to monitor and I will say more once his party has given us an official offer.
I'll start with the first two topics that I know we are most interested in.
RJ and Deshayne to the portal.
Tough loss to lose RJ, this was a guy that I said was 50/50 on entering the portal but I honestly thought we would be able to keep him, however it turns out we could not. Seems as if both sides could not come to an NIL deal rework and just the vision they had was best fit. A team that I heard was in the sweepstakes was actually Clemson pushing hard for him again, however lets see how that goes.
Deshayne is gone. Saw that, called that. The information I have now however tells me that he was actually told to hit the portal by staff. Just overall was not working out with his on the court play and off the court behavior. It is always a good sign when a staff has the ability and confidence to tell players to walk away, means we won't settle for mediocrity and know we can bring in an upgrade.
I won't speak much else on it but was told that Silas was asking for 1.2 million dollars. A number we could have matched, but would have been expensive and counter-offered by NCST. Silas has not completely cut ties with our camp, but his dad and agent are pushing hard for him to either commit to a P4 in North Carolina (UNC or NCST or maybe even Duke) or go pro.
Confirmed from my source that I can talk on with 100% certainty, our NIL budget for basketball is 6-7 million dollars this offseason. This firmly puts us in a place to pay to win. The higher ends of budgets will float around 10 million dollars, so we might not be the top tier of NIL packages but we are going to be very competitive going forward.
Now lets hit on the transfer portal, where we are going to spend that money. Jayden Pierre, the Providence guard who was in for a visit today, I am going to call it early from what I am being told. He will be out first commit. He is being offered around 750k from our NIL collection. I have mixed feelings about this move. As a player who seemed to be pushed out of town in Providence, and definitely struggled last year, I would advise you guys to watch up on him, but it seems like we are trying to "find a Silas clone". While they on paper may seem to play similar, Pierre is a much worse shooter, not as good of a finisher, is ball dominant and likes a lot of high ball screens like Silas did, but is not as efficient out of these sets, and is not a good transition player. It seems like the only things he excels in is he is a better playmaker and a respectable athlete. I am hoping he is just a backup PG, where that seems like his best role, back up P4 PG, but with that price tag this might be our starter at the 1 guard next year, we will see.
Other names to monitor I got officially confirmed. Jeremiah Wilkinson (California), Malik Reanu (Indiana), Tae Davis (Notre Dame), Darron Reid (Alabama). Mike White and staff are pushing heavily to return GA HS talent to the program to better set up connections with GA HS's. A big push and incentive for him to keep his job moving forward is to establish good recruiting roots in the state.
Oh yeah last piece of information for now. No word from Somto yet on what the plan is going forward. Conversations have stopped as Somto has yet to to come back to us with an NIL offer yet. Seems like him and his camp are mulling things over for what the best move for him or simply just what his starting asking price should be. So does not mean we are out of the running to keep him here at all, but also does not mean just because he has not left yet he is staying. This is something to monitor and I will say more once his party has given us an official offer.