Podcast: Why Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is vastly underrated

Ever since the Los Angeles Lakers signed LeBron James, the discussion has either been about additions around him like Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson and JaVale McGee or whether the young core of Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram is ready to play at that level.

If Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has come up, it’s been about how quickly he’s going to lose his starting job to Josh Hart. Well, here on Locked on Lakers, we’re not standing for that. He’s actually coming off a very solid season and still might have a little room to grow. To make those points, I welcome Cranjis McBasketball (@T1m_NBA or “Tim”) to see what his numbers say about KCP’s value.

Before we get into the details of the thing, here’s brief refresher on the format of this series of player previews:

In segment one, we discuss the season(s) the player had to get them to where they are now. That kind of context is critical in properly setting expectations moving forward.

Segment two covers what we’d like to see from the player individually.

Then, in the the third segment, we figure out how those individual expectations fit into the team construct.

Tim’s data sets the tone for the rest of the show in the first segment. He has a great system for showing value both in terms of individual talent and in terms of impact on the game. From there, we just let the discussion flow.

The cool thing about KCP is: The aspects of the game he’s best at and can still improve on all fill Lakers needs. This was a fun show.

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 on iTunes.