Walton says Pastner just called him up and it all worked out. It seems like a pretty great gig for a player who is sort of the subject of this NBA lockout. The Los Angeles Lakers signed Walton to a pretty healthy deal five years ago, signing a six-year $30 million deal.

Luke Walton joined Fox Sports Radio with Petros and Money to discuss his new gig at Memphis, if he thinks he’ll enjoy coaching, what his role will be, where Phil Jackson is right now, what is going on with the lockout and if it bothers him that he’s a name that comes up in talks about how contracts and money are out of control.

On how the whole Memphis situation came about:

“My good friend, Coach Pastner, Josh, called me up and asked if I had any interest in coaching and I said I would love an opportunity at it. So we worked out some details.”

Do you think this was a hasty decision that you might later regret?:

“It could be. That’s part of the reason I took it, just to kind of get a feel for it. Obviously I made some phone calls to some people before I said yes to get there advice on it. Most everyone, including my old coach, Phil Jackson, thought it was a great opportunity for me and something I should do just for that reason, to find out maybe I hate sitting in gyms blowing whistles for three hours a day when I could be down in Manhattan Beach. But maybe I’ll love it.”

What’s your role?:

“I’m in charge of all the big men. I’ve got the big men under my watch. Damon Stoudamire has the guards and Jack Murphy has the wing players.”

How about that staff?:

“Damon and I might have to play some two-on-two just in case the kids get out of line.”

What is Phil Jackson doing right now?:

“He was in Montana when I talked to him. He had just gotten back from the Hall of Fame. … He still has his cell phone number, so we didn’t have to go smoke signal or any of that stuff.”

What is happening with the lockout?:

“For coaching, as much fun as it would be in a March Madness … would be pretty insane. But there’s just no way to tell right now. We’re so far apart that it definitely doesn’t look like it’s going to happen to where we start anywhere on time. Hopefully once some preseason games get missed and some regular season games that both sides will be a lot more willing to actually get stuff done … and figure things out.”

Does it bother you that your name comes up in the lockout argument against players that are making too much money?:

“It obviously bothers me. I haven’t really noticed it because I kind of stay out of the media during the offseason. But obviously it bothers you as a player. You want to feel your worth. Obviously I’m getting paid a salary that was for a much larger role back when we agree upon the deal. I was a playmaker, I was playing 30 minutes a game and I was able to do a lot of things for a team. And I had offers from other teams to do the same thing. … For the most part, fans have been great out here. Then, all of the sudden you bring in Pau Gasol and other players of that caliber and my role kind of gets smaller and smaller. I can still play the game … then all of the sudden my back goes bad on me and mentally I’m frustrated. … The role that I was paid that money to do kind of got taken away in a sense.”

Listen to Luke Walton on Fox Sports Radio here

Whatever, there’s going to be an investigation, and heads might roll. And while Rose might not get in trouble, I guarantee you that he gets his balls busted for whatever role he had. Fortunately, he’s got a friend on the inside: Monique Davis, a government representative in Illinois appears to be on Rose’s side in this whole shenanigan-fest, and she spoke about Rose’s role in the shadiness.

What disappoints her:

“I think and I do believe that, as a young African American male, Mr. Rose was portrayed in that article as if he has changed his grades and as if he had accepted the adult responsibility of letting someone else take his exam. There is absolutely no way that Derrick Rose changed his grade or even gave himself a grade…Here we have in my opinion a great hero, a native son, who has achieved stardom in his god-given and developed talent of playing basketball. Usually the Sun Times gives us good information, usually they’re fair, but I thought in this instance there was an attempt to bring down Derrick Rose for behavior that Derrick Rose didn’t do. Derrick didn’t change the grade…Derrick Rose is still a hero in my eyesight.”

On the silence from Rose and his agent:

“I don’t think Derrick Rose has time to continue with an investigation that has gone on for one year. Obviously the system is flawed if this occurred and it’s amazing that after one year you still can’t find out how it occurred? Derrick Rose is not responsible for answering that question for you. It is the Chicago public school system who should answer the games for you…We don’t know with proof yet that it did occur. Derrick Rose should continue to concentrate on being the Bulls star, bringing all of us back to watching those games and going to those games.” 

Why she has come to his defense: 

“Because of a flawed system of grade keeping or record keeping, we want to attack a person who is successful? Do you know how many people need your help rather than you trying to pull them down and making them appear to be a criminal? Derrick Rose is not a criminal. He’s not a criminal. Our interest should be in preventing other young men from not becoming Bulls stars, from not developing their talents, whatever that talent may be…Maybe some of us don’t want to see certain people become heroes.”

What she thinks should happen:

“In my opinion, [James Sullivan] should develop a program and plan that would prevent this from happening again, rather than wasting taxpayer money going back to two years ago when Derrick Rose was playing in Simeon [Career Academy]. We don’t want this to happen again but if our intent is to remove Derrick Rose from stardom, we know that’s not going to happen. So what is the intent here? Is the intent to make sure this doesn’t happen again? If that’s the intent then we should be working internally in the system…to prevent this from occurring.”

Listen to Monique Davis on WSCR in Chicago with Mully and Hanley

He’s been training for this since he was Bar Mitzvahed.  It was inevitable that Josh Pastner would be a college basketball head coach.  Truthfully, I’m kind of surprised it took him to the age of 31 to accomplish this, but Memphis is a pretty good place to get your coaching start.

Pastner’s dad Hal ran the Houston Hoops AAU program and Josh was writing scouting reports on the players on his team and that they faced.  Colleges from all over the country would use this 13 year old’s scouting reports.  He eventually took over the AAU program from his dad by the age of 16 and has coached NBA players like Emeka Okafor and TJ Ford.  Pastner was a walk-on at the University of Arizona and basically was an assistant coach as a student.  He graduated in 2 1/2 years and was ready for his coaching pilgrimage to start.

After being an assistant at Arizona since 2001 and a great recruiter that landed Chase Budinger, Jerryd Bayless, and Jordan Hill, Pastner left for Memphis to become John Calipari’s assistant and lead recruiter.  When Coach Cal took the job at Kentucky, Pastner thought for sure he would be heading to Wildcat country with him.  After flirting with Bruce Pearl and a few others, Memphis offered Pastner the head coaching job at Memphis.  They got him on the cheap at less than a million a year, but I’m pretty sure he’ll prove his worth quickly.

Pastner joined his hometown station KILT in Houston to talk about his new gig.

On landing the job

“What other words can you put than “wow”?..I think the setup here is so great. For any kid that wants to come here and see the facilities, the support, the University, the entire community lives and breathes this program. There’s no difference from this to Carolina to Duke, in my view. You can say the conference. Hey, the University of Memphis is [as much of] an elite school as any school in America.”

On the whirlwind surrounding his hiring

“It’s probably just a tad bit over 48 hours since all of this has happened so it’s been unbelievable but I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. It’s a little bit stressful at times but I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. Part of the problem I’ll be honest with you is Coach Cal, and bless his heart because the opportunity here for everyone else is amazing, but his whole staff went with him to Kentucky. So I’m here by myself right now without any assistants or director of basketball or anything…I’ve got scheduling, you’ve got 55 million different things to worry about, but once I get my staff in here, I’ll feel a little more set and a little more comfortable.”

Pastner on where the Memphis program goes from here, Coach Cal, and the full interview after the jump.

On where the Tigers go from here

“If we can keep the nucleus intact, get a recruit or two in, have a heck of a year next year, then you’re good to go… We’ve got to keep this nucleus together. I told them all, I said, “Guys, I am not John Calipari, I’m Josh Pastner. No one came here to play for Josh Pastner, you came here to play for John Calipari…But here we are, life threw us a little curveball…we’re going to do this together. I’ve got your back, you’ve got to have my back.”

On Coach Calipari

“Coach Calipari has been unbelievable. He’s calling me, checking in, I mean the guy is the best. I really believe he is the best coach in the game today; pro, college or high school, he’s the absolute best.”

Listen to Josh Pastner on KILT in Houston with the Drivetime Players

On his thought process of joining the Wildcats:

“Someone said, ‘You weren’t their first choice’ and you know what I said, ‘You know what?  I was my wife’s second or third choice and it’s worked out okay.’  At the end of the day, it was a dream of mine and the AD said ‘I made a mistake, I should have hired him last time.’  Whether he made a mistake or not, things don’t happen on our timetable… It’s a dream job for me, it’s what I’ve always seen as the best of the best.”

On why it was difficult to leave the Tigers:

“It’s hard leaving Memphis, we had the best class in the country coming in, we’re coming off 30-win years every year, we had a chance to win national titles, we had an unbelievable brand going – to leave that, it had to be something like Kentucky.”

Calipari on what closed the deal and his timeline at Kentucky after the jump.

On what closed the deal:

“The hardest thing was, ‘Can I do this?’  Going to Kentucky was easy.  Can I do this, which is leave the University of Memphis for all they did.  Next year, if I had stayed, I would have made more at Memphis…  Here’s what got me and why I ended up saying I gotta do this.  What would I feel like in three years if we come back to Earth at Memphis, and I had a chance to take the Kentucky job and I passed on it, and I regretted it?  I said, ‘You know what?  I probably would.”

On the timeline at Kentucky:

“I told the President and I told the AD when I met him, ‘If you look at me historically, over my career, it’s taken me four years to get Massachusetts going, it took me four years to get Memphis going.  Now, maybe Kentucky can do it a little quicker, maybe in three years, but after we get programs going, Mike, they stay there.  They’re at the top of the top, they stay there.  ‘Now, if you guys can’t deal with that you should not hire me, I’m not a miracle worker…”

Listen to John Calipari on WFAN with Mike Francesa