Steve Serby

Steve Serby

NBA

Hey, Phil: Your coach is waiting at Kentucky

INDIANAPOLIS — John Calipari sure doesn’t need the money, and he has what is arguably the best coaching job in all of college basketball. He loves coaching Kentucky and shaping the lives of teenagers, even if it is for one year and one year only.

Phil Jackson should call Calipari anyway.

Rick Pitino left Kentucky for the Celtics and regretted it. Calipari left UMass following the 1995-96 season for the New Jersey Nets and regretted it. He brought a national championship home to Lexington two years ago and has his one-and-doners, who meet Michigan on Sunday, 40 minutes from another Final Four.

Most of the great ones get The Itch. Mike Krzyzewski sure did. Tom Izzo sure did. Calipari sure could.

“He has not hinted that to me,” longtime Calipari friend and legendary Five-Star Basketball Camp founder Howard Garfinkel told The Post. “He has not let me know that. So if he does, it’s something I don’t know about.

“And I would think, why, why would he want to do that? He’s got the best coaching job in America, why would he want to leave? Why would Billy Donovan want to go to the NBA? Why would anybody want to when they have a job like they have. A few more dollars isn’t going to change their life.”

All true. But can anyone be certain Steve Kerr can flourish as a head coach in New York? How about a highly motivated Calipari, eager to redeem his unfulfilling and unsuccessful Nets experience?
Call him, Phil.

“He’d be a great coach anywhere he goes ’cause he’s a terrific coach,” Garfinkel said. “He knows how to handle people, he’s strict but he’s fair, and he knows the game, he knows the game. He’d be a great NBA coach.

“The only way I would leave Kentucky is if they don’t change the stupid one-and-done business. Then they should end the college game altogether. It should be two-and-done, minimum of two years. Once you go to college, you got to stay two years.”

Garfinkel, a lifelong New Yorker known fondly to Bob Knight and Coach K and everyone as “Garf,” knew early on Calipari was destined for greatness watching him coach the rising sophomores at his famous Five-Star Camp in Honesdale, Pa., some 40 years ago, when he became a counselor and a coach there.

One instance sticks out for Garfinkel, when this 14-year-old point guard showed up at Five Star.

“[Calipari] had a trick,” Garfinkel said. “He would pick out his best player, and the second he did something wrong on the court, he’d call a timeout and he’d get into the kid’s nose — the best player on the team — and he’d bury him for the entire timeout, curse him, do everything you could to him.”

On this occasion, though, that 14-year-old was Danny Ferry, the son of former NBA power forward Bob Ferry — who was watching it all unfold.

“And I said, ‘Ohmygod, my life’s over,’ ” Garfinkel recalled. “ ‘I’m going to lose all of Washington [D.C.], I’m going to lose DeMatha, I’m going to lose Morgan Wootten. … My camp’s over, it’s finished. Ferry’s going to kill me.’

“[Bob Ferry] comes walking over, and he said, ‘What’s that coach’s name?’ So that’s when I made up Calipperi. I said, ‘I think it’s Calipperi, I’m not sure. I thought Ferry was going to strangle the guy.

“He says, ‘Well, he’s going to be a great coach someday. It’s about time someone did that to my son. Congratulations.’ ”

To Garfinkel, Calipari is still the same man he was then.

“Forget basketball,” Garfinkel said. “He is the most misunderstood individual that I know. His friends today are the same people that were at the camp. The same people. He hasn’t moved up a step so to speak.”

Garfinkel would add: “Him and his buddy [Rick] Pitino were the two youngest best coaches in the history of the camp.”

Asked what their relationship is today, Garfinkel said: “I think it’s cooled to say the least.”

I asked Garfinkel, 84 years young, if coaching on the New York stage would appeal to Calipari.

“I think that would appeal to anybody to coach at the Garden, even though it’s the World’s Most Infamous Arena. … It’s still the Garden,” Garfinkel said.

Calipari is 55 now, and the life lessons he teaches his Kentucky kids won’t be as invaluable as a pro coach.

“We talk about social media,” Calipari said. “We train them in social media. And get them to understand there are a lot of haters and bullies out there. You can’t deal with it, don’t read it. Social media is a chance for you to send out a message that you want to be positive, to pick people up, to let people know. And we try to teach them that. Now, do they see some of that other stuff? They do. And you gotta grow up kinda fast and not have it faze you.”

Garfinkel wanted to make it perfectly clear his opinions on Calipari are not meant in any way to reflect on Mike Woodson. On the idea Jackson should call Calipari, Garfinkel said: “As long as Mike Woodson’s the coach, I have no comment. He’s a very fine gentleman. He’s a good man, a very good man.”

And it is hardly a secret Jackson will soon be looking for a good coach, a very good coach.

Call Cal.