Podcast: What kind of trade could Kentavious Caldwell-Pope be used in?

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has technically served his purpose now that LeBron James is on the Los Angeles Lakers, but as he was re-signed this past summer at a fairly high rate, he’ll need to produce at some point. If not, he should be moved — no-trade-clause or not.

We’ll come back to that in a bit. On today’s Locked on Lakers, I first discuss Saturday night’s game, then open up the mailbag.

Let’s start with Saturday night and, specifically, Lonzo Ball. He made his first start of the season with Rajon Rondo available and was fairly underwhelming. For him to be successful, he has to create havoc and then take advantage of said chaos. When he doesn’t do that (as he did for much of Saturday night’s loss against the San Antonio Spurs), he turns into a streaky shooter hoping to impact the game on the peripherals.

Once I moved on from Saturday night’s disappointing loss, the mailbag provided a ton of interesting topics to discuss.

The first question is one that hasn’t really come up before: As the young core near the end of their rookie deals, which of them would I prefer to pay?

Instead of looking at guys by name, I look at this topic in terms of what various prospects panning out would mean for the ceiling of the organization.

For example: if Lonzo and Brandon Ingram reach their potential, the Lakers immediately become legitimately special. If Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart hit their (comparably lower) ceilings, the Lakers would still be in a good spot, but not quite capable of competing with the NBA’s other title contenders.

The questions took me all over the place, but the KCP topic is worth further consideration.

He needs to produce or be moved — and if he is moved, it’ll be for more than a backup center. Just something to pay attention to.

As always, this is just a tidbit of the full context given in the show. Listen to the full discussion below and please check out old episodes, or guarantee you won’t miss any ever again by subscribing to either “The Silver Screen and Roll Podcast” or “Locked on Lakers” on iTunes.