P.J. Washington signed autographs for participants at satellite camp last week in Elizabethtown. (UK Basketball Photo)
Paul Washington Sr. enjoyed getting to Rupp Arena as often as he could last season to watch his son, P.J. Washington, play for coach John Calipari.
He likely won’t be back at Rupp Arena as much this season even with his son’s decision to return to UK rather than keep his name in the NBA Draft because he’s left his job as head coach at Findlay Prep in Las Vegas.
“I am hoping to get a college job,” Paul Washington Sr. said. “I have a lot of hats out there searching right now.
“Being his sophomore year, it won’t be quite as hard not being there. My wife will be down there a lot. I will find a way to get there some. But P.J. will be more mature. He knows what to expect and not expect. I am really looking forward to seeing his leadership. But I loved going to the games. There’s nothing quite like a game in Rupp Arena.”
From the time P.J. Washington put his name into the NBA draft, both the player and his father said he would be back at UK unless he was going to be a first-round draft pick. That’s exactly what happened, too.
“We were honest and upfront all along,” Paul Washington said. “It just came down to whether he would be a first-round pick or not. He feels he is a first-round player and did not want to settle for just being a draft pick.”
Washington got a lot of feedback from NBA coaches and executives about his play at the NBA combine as well as individual team workouts.
“I learned a lot. I was like his acting agent,” Paul Washington said. “I got to talk to a handful of NBA teams about my son and what they were looking for. But one thing I did learn was not to tell everything. We are going to keep the feedback to ourselves. He’s still my kid and I don’t want people to start any scenarios about what feedback we got.
“The scenario is that P.J. has just got to play his game. You saw his game at Findlay Prep and his game at Kentucky. It was a little different. He just has to be who he is and play his game. He wants to win and does what the team needs to win. He was put in some awkward positions last year and you did not get to see his full strength. That kind of hurt him but he does what a coach wants him to do because he wants to win. That won’t change.”
While there was speculation that P.J. Washington was hell-bent on going to the NBA no matter what the player or his father said, the UK freshman would have been drafted in the second round and given a contact most of us would have like to have if he had stayed in the drat.
“It definitely was not a situation where he would not have got drafted,” Paul Washington said. “We know 100 percent he would get drafted. But he’s not just the kind of guy to go to the draft because other guys are. He knows his worth and wants to compete now for a national championship. He wants to prove he can win a national championship and carry a team.
“If there was something from the NBA (financially) he just could not have turned down, he would have taken it. But this was something he could turn down and he putting trying to win a national championship above making a couple of million dollars. That’s a huge decision. He could have made $1.5 million now but he coming back to Kentucky to win a national championship is certainly not a bad option and that’s the one he chose just like he said he would.”
(STORY BY LARRY VAUGHT)
