{"id":628867,"date":"2026-02-27T19:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/628867\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:57:13","slug":"mark-popes-ideal-roster-management-role-get-me-all-the-best-players-for-zero-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/628867\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Pope’s ideal roster management role: ‘Get me all the best players for zero dollars.’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky<\/a> is going to go from a $22 million roster to a zero-dollar roster if Mark Pope<\/a> can get his hands on the best general manager in the history of organized athletics. It\u2019s going to be a talent increase while wiping out the payroll entirely \u2014 talk about playing for the name on the front of the jersey!<\/p>\n

He\u2019s joking, obviously, but the point he\u2019s making is what every coach potentially pursuing roster management help, whether it\u2019s called a GM, executive director of basketball, COO or whatever catchy title the Wildcats come up with \u2014 that part matters very little \u2014 is looking for. <\/p>\n

The person hired for that role will be in charge of finding the best bang for the program\u2019s buck, efficiently loading up on championship-caliber talent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m looking for is the guy that can get me all the best players for $0 [laughs],\u201d Pope told KSR. <\/a><\/p>\n

The follow-up comes on the heels of yet another high-major program making a move on a GM, Auburn targeting a hire ahead of the April 7 portal window, according to On3\u2019s Justin Hokanson.<\/a> The Indiana Hoosiers added an executive director of basketball earlier in the week, <\/a>hiring Pacers senior vice president of player personnel Ryan Carr away from the NBA ranks.<\/p>\n

Pope addressed the GM position once again during his weekly radio show on Wednesday<\/a>, saying that it\u2019s still something he\u2019s considering in Lexington with talks ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s been an ongoing conversation for us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of conversations trying to find exactly the space that will work best for us. But, you know, as everybody figures this out, that is certainly a direction that some teams have gone with, with really incredibly varied levels of success.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re probably having conversations about it on a weekly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not much has changed from Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon in that regard, but Pope did add he\u2019s got former Wildcats in his ear telling him they have all of the answers about how to build a roster and do it without spending an arm and a leg. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s the BBN equivalent of Moneyball, made famous by the \u201902 Oakland Athletics? Bluegrass Ball? We\u2019ll workshop that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re having a lot of conversations. I\u2019ve had several former teammates say that\u2019s exactly what they can do,\u201d Pope told KSR. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I trust them, but it\u2019s a part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an important offseason for the Kentucky head coach entering year three and we\u2019re just six weeks away from the start of portal chaos. One way or another, we won\u2019t have to wait long to see what Pope decides to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky is going to go from a $22 million roster to a zero-dollar roster if Mark Pope can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,4000,7910],"class_list":{"0":"post-628867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-kentucky-basketball","10":"tag-mark-pope-91-newport-senior"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}