Agreed with a a lot of what you said. I think this situation was a bit different, as in, we had a lot of guys at his position coming back and therefore, he would have had to really compete for mins. Other years, he probably wouldn’t have and could have been that one and done.While I agree with most of this, my only point was we don't need to bash every media outlet that questions Painter's perfection. It is fair for non Purdue media talking heads to question the handling of a situation that the end result is a highly rated player leaving the program last minute and him not having a lot of options. Obviously this is more likely more on KC than Painter, but it's still fair to question what changed between his NLI and the precipice of arriving to campus.
It was common knowledge that KC thought of himself as a one and done, and common knowledge that Painter does not hand people roles, they are earned. Both sides knew the other side, and there was still not only a commitment but an NLI signed. It's fair to question what happened and both sides having some blame. No one really knows the situation fully, and we've only heard one side of it.
It is my opinion that this is still a bad look to recruits as a whole. Maybe not the current players (of course they'd be happy with less competition for minutes, especially being over signed), but obviously there was a disconnect between Painter and KC, and as a young recruit, when you make a commitment you don't want to have many doubts. Huge red flag? no. But a concern either way.
I'm also of the opinion, you occasionally need to sprinkle in highly rated talented with your blue collar, chip on your shoulder guys to have a serious NC contender, and it sucks seeing your top recruit of the cycle go, regardless of the reason, if only from a talent perspective.
Paint will probably adjust more to the transfer portal and NIL once Smith, TKR and Loyer are gone. He will also need to get used to recruiting those guys (top 30-40) like you mentioned, if success is sustained at a high level by his teams over the next 5 years because Purdue will gain attention from those top recruits. Now, he may not want to incorporate them into the team still, but I’m sure he’s taking a look. Even for next year and the year after, he’s offered some guys that are up there in rankings (if that matters haha). So we will see where he is able to take the program in the next 5-10 years with all these changes(that have no regulations essentially haha).