Here's why KU fans should be rooting against Hoiberg in the NBA

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- If you're a Kansas fan and you like stability and calm, you're rooting for Gregg Popovich to coach in San Antonio forever. You're rooting for the Chicago Bulls and Oklahoma City Thunder to soil their respective bedsheets.

Because if Fred Hoiberg works, because if Billy Donovan works, there will be more NBA calls, more NBA dollars dangling in front of Jayhawks coach Bill Self. Not less.

Pro teams, by and large, don't like to go out on a limb when it comes to coaching hires, lest the branch snap beneath them. But Donovan, a national championship coach at Florida, leaving the SEC for Durant, Westbrook and Bricktown isn't just brave; it's interesting. Hoiberg walking away from the second-best program in the Big 12, right now -- the one earmarked to give KU the most hell in the Jayhawks' quest for a 12th straight league title -- to hitch his rising wagon to the Bulls is downright fascinating.

That and curious. You'll watch. Won't you? Because you better believe Self will be watching, too.

KU's venerated coach has made it a point to never say never when the NBA is brought up, which is only fair. The company line is he has it damn good where he is, which is true, but the movers and shakers know where to find him. Spurs general manager R.C. Buford is a pal, one of loads Self has been able to bounce things off of over the years. The college game is a different beast than it was even a decade earlier, thanks in part to the one-and-done window on one hand -- forcing more roster turnover than ever among the elite prospects -- and, on the other, the retention of star coaches at small schools -- Mark Few at Gonzaga, Gregg Marshall at Wichita State, Shaka Smart until recently at VCU -- helping to make the postseason whims of March madder than ever.

Self's best teams usually have had some kind of veteran presence at their core, but the brightest talents available in the pool will continue to be rentals, whether you like it or not. KU incoming freshman big man Cheick Diallo, if healthy, is already projected as a potential lottery pick in the summer of 2016, a goner before he buys a textbook in Lawrence. You're either restocking a third of your roster every summer or trying to recruit/sell those kids on coming back.

Lookin' good! Check out our gallery of NCAA hoops cheerleaders.

Donovan is 50. Hoiberg is 42. If this NBA move doesn't fly, there's time enough -- and money enough -- to return to the college game, try television, join the Peace Corps, whatever. Self is 52. Larry Brown is a mentor, and Brown has been through more cities than a Google drone. Self knows full well the pros and cons of the pros and cons, the virtues on either side of the fence.

And yet the narrative this summer -- and it's early yet -- is how those lines seem to be blurring a bit again, at least from a perception standpoint. Maybe it's time and short memories, that a generation had forgotten just what a hot mess the likes of John Calipari and Rick Pitino were at the next level.

Granted, Hoiberg is a special case, a folder to himself. He went from an NBA career to climb up the NBA front office ladder. When he jumped to the college game five years ago, that seemed like the truly radical departure initially, at least on Iowa State's part. But Fred had a blueprint. He hired Bobby Lutz, the former University of Charlotte coach, to help shepherd him through that first NCAA year. He cast a wide net. He took risks. His system was unique; his style, personal -- no one has ever gotten more out of the mercurial and gifted Royce White, for example, before or since.

So, ultimately, like any other hypothetical, it would depend on the parameters. Butler's Brad Stevens is a basketball junkie who hitched his wagon to the Celtics, the bluest of NBA bloods. Donovan is inheriting one of the best rosters in professional basketball and already has a long friendship with his general manager; Hoiberg, same deal.

NCAA lifers can mold a college program in their image. An NBA coach is as good as his roster.

Barring the unforeseen, it's hard to imagine Self getting twitchy soon. He reportedly pocketed $3.856 million in 2014-15. He gets to coach his son, who just completed his redshirt sophomore season. His Jayhawks are loaded and need two more consecutive league titles to make it 13 in a row, tying UCLA for the most in Division I major-conference history. He sits at the head of a dynasty now, at least where the Big 12 playground is concerned, and Hoiberg's departure doesn't appear to be hurting that particular stranglehold in the least.

But all it takes is a reason. Stevens said he had a hankering to try it out. Donovan said he wanted a challenge. Hoiberg always kept that door open, even though what he built in Ames got so good so quickly that we weren't sure whether to believe he'd actually walk away from it.

And some guys want a change for change's sake, simple as that. In college, the buck stops with you, on everything, absolute power and absolute responsibility. In the NBA, the superstars pull the money, the strings and the spotlight.

College coach: Robert Plant. Pro coach: John Paul Jones.

Which is not to say Self couldn't wake up one day and decide he's tired of being a lead singer, with only a skinny microphone stand to protect him at the front of the stage. It's hard to fathom, granted -- Self is inherently engaging, one-on-one, especially with media, a born rush chair. After wins, he's fantastic. After (rare) losses, he's even better.

Then again, so is Hoiberg. Ditto Steve Kerr. And look at them now.

You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter at @SeanKeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.