I would love to land Boogie Fland

As an Earth, Wind and Fire fan I would love it if the Gators signed him and nicknamed him Wonder.

He would be Boogie "Wonder" Fland.

 

exactly. that's the smart way to recruit and build.

Looks who he's signed - a former teammate of Haugh and Brown's brother. Condo's old teammate might be next. Team chemistry matters.

 

First- as mentioned above, we did not have bargain basement players or really unknown players. Clayton was a known quantity (4 star coming to UF) that probably would have commanded a 5 star rating in the portal if he had not returned for his senior year. Chin and Martin were both 4 star talents that played probably a bit above that level, breaking into 5 star territory, but a far cry from being unknown or diamond in the rough.
Second- quite simply the player who is going to go to a team completely for passion just does not exist anymore. Even if we develop the talent, players aren't going to take a major paycut over what they could get on the open market to be here. Sure they might take 50K or 100K here or there to stay at a team they like or grew up wanting to play for. But were not gonna hold on to a 3 million dollar talent for a million bucks if he knows he can command 3 million elsewhere. I guarantee we were at least competitive with the open market with all our guys this year. And will have to be to retain everyone who hasn't already transferred.
Third- Things aren't the mark they used to be. It used to be a player that transferred a lot was a mark of a player with a problem. That's just not the case anymore. And NIL will only exacerbate that. Now, coaches might cut a kid even though they really like him just because what he can command on the open market isn't nearly what they're worth to that team because an unexpected player developed early or much higher than they thought and took that person's expected role, so in a worst case scenario they might not even be able to justify his old NIL contract being renewed over spending the money on another player at another position.
A player can completely contribute to a team, work hard, be a complete team player wherever they're at and still be ok with going to another team because their current market value is 2-3X what their current team can offer and/or justify spending on them. These are not mutually exclusive traits. Like I guarantee if another team was offering double what Florida was offering Martin and/or Chin wouldn't have come here. They got their bag, but understood what it meant and had work ethic when it was time to get to work.

Finally like I said, I think the formula involves a core group of veterans that have been in the system while. I said I think we should go after 1-2 confirmed big fish per cycle and pair them together with "the core"- that's not a bunch of individual pieces. That's basically what we did with Martin (transfer) + Clayton (coming back). And just because they're big fish - doesn't mean they don't "get it" - Martin was a massive prospect last cycle with his known quantity element of what he did in the Final Four. And he's also the one that famously said "Don't put this uniform on if you're not ready for what it means". Quite simply - with traditional markers kinda becoming meaningless now, it will really just come down to one-on-one with the coach and letting the current players evaluate them. I ABSOLUTELY think this should be part of the process or formula. But if a big fish has the right mind too - and our need justifies his asking price we really shouldn't thumb our nose because he's "too big" and therefore somehow has crossed some invisible threshold of being incapable of team play.

 

point being they were better after a year in the program than worse - they were worth more after a year at UF, we helped create that value...sure they were proven but all 3 of our dream backcourt were only “proven” at mid-majors. Few thought they would be slam dunk successes here. Even up until this season started, there were a LOT of doubters.

It's easy to look back from where they are now but when we recruited them, we weren't all jumping up and down cheering that we recruited guards from mid majors. It's a long shot to expect guys who perform well there to walk into the SEC and dominate. All 3 of those players got better here, especially Clayton Jr and Richard. Both had huge jumps on the defensive end since last year. That's player development, coaching and guys buying in (and of course a desire to get into the NBA)- recruiting the right guys that have that inner drive to get better and do whatever it takes to win. In other words as much intangibles as tangibles.

I would absolutely say that we saw more value in them than the market did, unless I'm missing somewhere that they were all top portal recruits - Richard was ranked 18, Clayton Jr was anywhere from #15 to #69 and Martin was the 129th ranked transfer overall

 

Golden identifies talent through the lens of analytics, looking at the statistics within the statistics. Reading Eric's front page article about Lee and "usage," it seems obvious why he locked him down first. It'll be interesting to see who the complimentary pieces will be. I'm still very hopeful that Henshall gets on board but what do I know. I was terrible at math.