RJ Luis

Beasts of the East said:
The harsh reality is that unless RJ makes the NBA, which is not a given, his 2025-26 NIL earnings likely will be the highest compensation he will earn. Going into the portal assures that he will maximize his earnings.
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Exactly, Beast. To me, it boils down to this. He has just one year of college eligibility remaining. If he elects to maximize his earnings, I won't blame him for that. This is a life decision for RJ.
 
RJ was not given the opportunity to return to St. Johns. Sadly, that and the chance to lead us to the sweet 16 were snatched away with 4:56 remaining in Rhode Island. I wish I knew what really happened. When Rick said; 'You already know why Roger. Don't ask leading questions'". He should have replied; "No, I don't know why Rick. Why don't you tell us?"

He was a joy to watch. Thank you for all you've done for us RJ!
 
In a perfect world Luis would come back and along with Zuby and to a lesser extent Wilcher would have made building next years team easier.

The world isn’t perfect so Rick and team will have to be more creative on building next years roster. In year one he built in my opinion what was more than capable of competing in the NCAA’s with Joel and a ton of late additions. This off season there has been so much more planning and more players who were in the system practicing and playing last season.

It is ok to be dissapointed about RJ and still be excited about the future. I think we will be a good team next season regardless.
 
Is it a certain that he is as good as gone? This is a business and I agree he has to maximize value for this last year. The portal is his negotiation tool to do that. Leaking news doesn't mean he is gone or does it?
 
Beasts of the East said:
If that happens it will be our biggest loss since our biggest loss.

And if so, could be the costliest 5 minute benching in our history.
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When he signed up recently with ROC Sports , im sure both parties agreed to a strategy , prior to the NCAA tourney. If RJ was not captivated by financial gain then, we know that his agents were. I think we see this portal entry regardless of NCAA outcomes. They are leveraging what he accomplished in BE, POY and MVP of Tourney.With the offers hes getting now, Im sure RJ feels much better than he did on 3/22 in Providence! Money will probably determine where he plays next year, and if all things are equal, St Johns might get him back.
 
carmineabbatiello said:
RJ was not given the opportunity to return to St. Johns. Sadly, that and the chance to lead us to the sweet 16 were snatched away with 4:56 remaining in Rhode Island. I wish I knew what really happened. When Rick said; 'You already know why Roger. Don't ask leading questions'". He should have replied; "No, I don't know why Rick. Why don't you tell us?"

He was a joy to watch. Thank you for all you've done for us RJ!
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If he was not given the opportunity to return, then Im going to assume that the situation was far worse then most anyone on this board had clue of. Again, if that was/is indeed the case, time to move on.
 
I think what carmine is saying is that the benching was too humiliating for RJ to return next year, thus his decision was made for him

I mean I’d disagree but at the end of the day we don’t know exactly how that situation played out behind closed doors after the game. Things may just be irreparable

Or maybe it was ALWAYS RJs plan to portal after this season. We simply don’t know

Maybe he reads the board and didn’t wanna play for LMF’s team anymore. Anything could be possible ;)
 
I want RJ back....you'd be crazy not to. I'll let that part play out without commenting. I'll add a few on-court thoughts:

1. RJ played with literally the best fit for him in the country with Kadary. Kadary's unselfishness was crazy and was the only reason this team had chemistry. He's unlikely to get that anywhere again -- even here.

2. Sanon takes a ton of the same shots that RJ did. RJ didn't compete with anyone for those shots this year. Nobody went on-on-one for jumpers with any kind of regularity but RJ. That is the easiest part of RJ's game to replace, and you can make the argument that Sanon is better off taking those shots right now.

3. RJ's biggest contribution IMO was his relentless play on the glass and his overall hustle. If we don't get him back, that will be the hardest thing to replace. I've never seen any wing better on offense within 5-6 feet of the basket.
 
carmineabbatiello said:
It doesn't. Being a league Mvp and 2nd team all American that gets benched by your coach in the biggest game of your life and the last 25 years of your school does.
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Look at Carmine out here trying to shift the blame to Pitino when it is patently apparent that The Carmine Curse is really to blame.

Step 1: player becomes a Carmine favorite

Step 2: player leaves.

Luis. Jenkins. Patterson. Only Paris Horne survived, and he had Norm to help him.
 
Until (if) the NCAA puts up some guardrails, rebuilding every year for every coach will become the norm. Pitino made the most out of what he got in 2024 (Kadary, Deivon, Aaron, Vince). There's only one elite get from that list of 4, and it's incredible what the team did this season. Our national exposure will land a better portal class, and I hope we still have an eye on Freshmen and Euro players. Come October, I know we'll have talent on the court, but impossible to know how quickly team chemistry comes together.
 
Jack Williams said:
Maybe he reads the board and didn’t wanna play for LMF’s team anymore. Anything could be possible ;)
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I'm just going to point out that there are 16 teams that don't have RJ that made it farther than we did. Most of them don't have as good a coach as we do. And our resources are competitive.

As others noted Pitino did not expect RJ back and is perfectly capable of assembling a winning team without him.

I would rather have him back since I like continuity, enjoy watching players grow and would love to see RJ add more tools to his toolkit. But if he chooses to depart we will be just fine and may even be a better team and more enjoyable watch.

Let it play out.
 
monte said:
That's not the way I'm reading it, but you could be right.
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He said RJ was not given the opportunity to return to St. John’s. He clearly wasn’t talking about the game.

A lot of people are speculating without any information. However, when Trilly and posters like Paultz confirm he’s likely gone, I believe it.

We may never know all the reasons behind RJ’s decision, but it is seldom just one thing. I’m sure money is a huge factor, but I have to think that getting benched during the biggest game of his life, followed by Pitino’s unfortunate press conference calling out his best player, and then the social media crap did not help.

As several posters have alluded to, this is so St. Jon’s. In four minutes of game time, we went from a historic season to drama.

Look, I’m sure we’ll recruit well in the portal and Pitino is a great coach. The future is brighter than it’s been in decades with or without Luis.

But as a fan, this portal crap is killing me. Luis was a hero who led us to our first big east regular season and tournament titles in 25 years. Instead of going down as one of the greats, we likely have to look at him in a different uniform next year and root for a new cast of mercenaries.

Like many of you, I love SJU so much that I will still be a huge fan, but I just detest all of this. I’m not blaming the kids or Luis for chasing the money, but this system is broken.
 
I'm talking about returning to the game AND returning to St. Johns. Both things died at the same time.

Imagine Jalen Brunson is in the final year of contract and about to become a free agent. Knicks down 2 with 456 left in game 7 of the conference final. He inexplicably gets benched by his coach.

Do you think there's any chance he goes back to the Knicks?
 
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