Luke Loucks is already reshaping Florida State Seminoles basketball. Here's how
The first 10 days of Luke Loucks's tenure with Florida State men's basketball have featured hours of phone calls, booster meetings, recruitment pitches and even some late-night Gutheries chicken tender dinners.
It's a chaotic, almost CEO-like schedule that represents modern college athletics, but, for Loucks, he's trying to waste little time reshaping the Seminoles program to match his vision.
In between the "tough conversations" with staff and players that will not be retained and the speed dating-like chaos of the transfer portal, Loucks has made his first hires with assistant coaches Michael Fly and Gerald Gillion.
"He was my first call, he was my first hire," Loucks said on Fly. "Michael Fly and I came into Florida State at the exact same time... he was an assistant coach for coach Hamilton, ran the film room. He had so much energy, so much juice, from day one as a player I connected with him.
"I believe I was 13 or 14 when I first met G [Gillion] and his family ... they happened to run Breakdown, one of the biggest AAU teams in Florida, and that's where I played with their family, I played for his brother Kenny," Loucks said on Gillion. "I've known Gerald and his family almost my whole life ... a special, high-character individual."
Adding top assistants just the start for FSU's Luke Loucks
Both coaches come in with head coaching experience with Fly at FCGU and Gillion at Chicago State, and both have ties to FSU. Fly was an assistant and Gillion graduated from the University.
Loucks said that their track record of "doing more with less" and helping build programs is one of the reasons he brought them into the program.
While the Seminoles' resources will be bigger than what the pair of coaches had at FGCU and Chicago State respectively, Loucks is still aggressively fundraising to increase the program's operating budget.
He plans to hire a GM to help manage the financials of the program, but currently, Loucks has relied on NBA connections to help him gain a better understanding of handling the financial aspects of roster construction.
"It's a lot for a coaching staff to manage, especially as it continues to evolve... eventually I will hire a GM, but it will be in the coming months probably before the next [transfer] cycle," Loucks said. "Currently I've sat down in preparation with a couple of different NBA teams I've worked for and asked those guys how you do it."
Loucks wants to build professional pathways for Seminoles players
With Loucks' arrival, the Seminoles' roster will look significantly different next season with current players entering the portal and Loucks looking to bring in players who fit his style of play.
He had honest discussions with everyone on the roster and expects high turnover as players enter the portal to assess their options. Loucks said some players who enter the portal could come back, but he's going to prioritize the right fit for the program.
Loucks knows NIL's influence on roster building, and he wants to implement a tier system to help manage it. A tier one player would be the equivalent of an NBA max contract player, and a tier three player wouldn't receive NIL money from the budget.
"Whether or not this is the right way to do it, this is just the way my mind works," Loucks said. "Tier one would be your max player, so you can probably only maybe have one or two of those guys and it's eating up half your budget. Tier two are rotation guys that are in your top 8-10 players... tier three are your developmental guys."
While Loucks said it may be different from how some colleges operate NIL budgets currently, he wants to incentivize his players with a pathway to professional basketball, both in the NBA and across the globe.
He wants to build his staff with different elements that include connections to FSU, himself and the NBA, to bolster his effort to create a professional development environment.
"I'm trying to create a pipeline to professional sports and it's where I'm coming from, I know what it takes to get there... with that, you have to create an ecosystem and a structure that allows that," Loucks said. "For these kids, I want them to feel like every day that I know what it takes to get you to stick at the NBA."
"Anyone can get someone in the NBA if they have enough talent, but what does it take to get that second, third, fourth NBA contract where you go from making minimum NBA money to those $50, $100, $300 million dollar contracts."
In building his staff and roster, Loucks wants his players to buy into his promise that if they sacrifice money upfront, he can help them earn millions more as professionals.
"I can't promise you that you are going to get there, but what I can promise you is that there will be nobody in the country that can help you the way I can help you both in development and preparation," Loucks said.
"That's going to allow us to get kids that we probably normally wouldn't be able to access. You may be able to make a few hundred extra thousand somewhere else, but you're not going to make a few extra hundred million somewhere else."
"That's my pitch, but it's all words if I don't create the system that allows that to happen."
Liam Rooney covers Florida State athletics for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at LRooney@gannett.com or on Twitter @__liamrooney
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU basketball's Luke Loucks: Work to reshape program already underway
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