Calipari implies he’ll be at Kentucky for years. ‘I want to do some special things here.’

The 10-year contract extension John Calipari signed back in 2019 isn’t even half fulfilled, but the 64-year-old coach’s long-term future has still been the subject of ample speculation over the past couple of seasons.

If Calipari is planning on being anything other than Kentucky’s basketball coach for the foreseeable future, he’s not letting on. The Hall of Fame coach made an offseason appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday morning, and one of the first topics of conversation was Calipari’s status in Lexington after another early exit from the NCAA Tournament.

“How close do you think you were to leaving Kentucky or them wanting you to leave Kentucky?” Patrick asked Calipari right off the bat. “Like, did it ever get to the point where you had to have a meeting to say, ‘Where are we going together?’”

“No. No,” UK’s coach responded.

Calipari did acknowledge that the Wildcats’ recent results — especially in the postseason — have not been up to Kentucky standards. In the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, the Wildcats finished with a 9-16 record — one of the worst marks in program history. UK was a 2 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament before being bounced by 15-seeded Saint Peter’s in the first round. This past season, the Cats rallied from a dismal start to become a 6 seed before losing to Kansas State in the second round of the tournament.

“Last year and the year before — we win 48 games in two years and two NCAA Tournaments and all that — at a normal place that’s, ‘Wow! We got this rolling.’ At Kentucky — there’s something different about Kentucky good,” Calipari said. “And we’ve been there.”

UK, of course, won the 2012 national title and went to a total of four Final Fours in Calipari’s first six seasons as head coach, but the Cats haven’t returned to that status since 2015, when their shot at an unprecedented 40-0 season was upended by Wisconsin in the national semifinals.

Kentucky went to the Elite Eight in 2017 and 2019, and Calipari repeated Thursday his long-held claim that the 2019-20 team would have been a top contender if the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t resulted in the cancellation of the 2020 tournament.

“We could have won a national title that year,” Calipari said, referencing a roster that featured such players as Tyrese Maxey, Immanuel Quickley and Nick Richards.

UK was projected to be a 3 seed in that tournament.

Calipari spent most of Thursday’s appearance with Patrick looking toward the future, mentioning the challenges of navigating the transfer portal and name, image and likeness changes over the past couple of years, as well as hinting toward his own tenure as Kentucky’s coach.

“The landscape has changed,” Calipari said. “This transfer stuff has changed stuff. The name, image and likeness has changed stuff. But, no, I think we’re on a good path. I want to do some special things here. We got six years left to do some really good stuff.”

Patrick asked Calipari to elaborate on his “six years” comment.

“I’ve got six years on the contract,” the coach said. “And I’m saying, ‘All right, let’s make this run. And let’s do some things and get this back where we were.’”

In 2019, after a decade on the job, Calipari signed what was popularly termed at the time as a “lifetime contract” to remain Kentucky’s coach. In reality, it was a 10-year extension that goes through the 2028-29 season. That deal is set to pay Calipari a salary of $8.5 million over the next two seasons, upping to $9 million per year for each of the final four seasons on the contract.

He does have an option — starting after the upcoming 2023-24 season — to forgo that remaining salary, step down as head coach, but remain an employee of the university in an ambassador-type role that would pay him $1 million per year.

Calipari, who turned 64 years old in February, has made no indication that he plans to take that option, and his comments Thursday might be the strongest yet that he intends to stay on as Kentucky’s coach for years to come. If UK wanted to part ways with Calipari before his contract ends in 2029, it would owe him 75 percent of whatever is left on the deal. That sum would still be more than $33 million following the 2023-24 season.

Patrick mentioned that longtime coaches Jim Boeheim and Jay Wright — both recently retired — have expressed their happiness with getting out of the profession amid the drastic changes that have accompanied the rise of the transfer portal and NIL reforms.

While Calipari acknowledged that high-pressure tenures like those of Boeheim (47 years as Syracuse head coach) and Mike Krzyzewski (42 years as Duke’s coach) would likely never be seen again, he made no indications that he plans to follow them into retirement anytime soon.

“The whole point of it is, ‘Am I able to help kids?’ And if I’m not, because of the transfer portal or NIL — that may change things,” Calipari said. “But right now — again, we got a great class coming in. We’ve got some vets coming back. I’m good with this.”

Calipari has signed the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class — featuring four top-10 recruits, plus Kentucky Mr. Basketball Reed Sheppard — for next season, and Kentucky is still waiting on other decisions as its 2023-24 roster continues to take shape.

Hunter Dickinson and NIL

Though star transfer Hunter Dickinson wasn’t mentioned by name during Thursday’s interview, his situation was perhaps alluded to in some of Calipari’s comments.

Dickinson — the No. 1-ranked player in the transfer portal — narrowed his options to Kentucky, Kansas, Maryland and Villanova before announcing a commitment to the Jayhawks on Thursday morning, around the same time Calipari appeared on The Dan Patrick Show.

The ability for schools to promise name, image and likeness compensation had become a major narrative in Dickinson’s recruitment, and — while reports have stated that other schools offered guaranteed NIL deals — it’s been Kentucky’s practice to tell recruits what other UK players have made over the past couple of seasons, rather than promise clear-cut numbers.

“I don’t like to get into that with players, because you don’t come to Kentucky (for that reason),” Calipari said. “I call that tripping over nickels to try to get to an NBA max contract.”

He then estimated that more than a dozen former UK players would be on max NBA contracts within the next couple of years. He also boasted that Kentucky players “make more than anybody” through NIL opportunities, mentioning Jacob Toppin’s AT&T commercial that ran prominently during the NCAA Tournament, as well as a recent deal with national law firm Morgan & Morgan that resulted in all of UK’s players earning compensation.

“But these kids want what the other kids are getting at other schools, Coach,” Patrick pushed back, implying that deep NIL conversations were a recruiting necessity at this point.

“And they will,” Calipari replied. “But I don’t want to go in and the first thing I talk about is name, image and likeness. That’s not why you come to Kentucky. That isn’t. Yet, you are going to do better (here) than anywhere else you go, but why talk about that?”

Oscar Tshiebwe and the NBA Draft

With Dickinson off to Kansas, the speculation over the future of Kentucky’s frontcourt now turns back to Oscar Tshiebwe and his current NBA Draft status.

Calipari said Tshiebwe was in his office Wednesday for updated discussions on his basketball future. The UK coach said he had talked to several NBA teams — including one league owner — about Tshiebwe as they continue to try and get a feel for where he might be selected in next month’s draft, if he gets picked at all.

Tshiebwe is still planning to do more workouts for NBA teams over the next few days, Calipari confirmed. The Herald-Leader was told earlier in the day that Tshiebwe has been getting feedback to indicate there are teams looking seriously at drafting him in the second round, but there had been no contract guarantees to this point that would lead him to jump all the way into the draft and forgo his final season of college eligibility.

Tshiebwe has until May 31 to make a final decision on staying in the draft or returning to school.

“And my thing, right now, is to do everything I can to help Oscar get in that league,” Calipari said. “… Do I want to coach Oscar another year? Yes! What am I, stupid? Stupid?! Yes, I want to coach him another year. But, if I’m doing right by him, I’ve gotta give him every opportunity to run this out and see exactly where he is.”