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The biggest priority for the Lakers whenever NBA free agency begins will be simple: Bringing back Anthony Davis. But given that Davis re-signing appears to pretty much be a done deal, next up on the front office’s to-do list will almost certainly be retaining Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Caldwell-Pope is coming off of the most productive season of his career, and he was huge for the Lakers in the playoffs, arguably their third most valuable player from start to finish as their championship run went along. On a free agent market without many good, young shooting guards, that could make Caldwell-Pope a valuable commodity.
How much value should the Lakers themselves put on Caldwell-Pope, though? That was the central question co-hosts Harrison Faigen and Anthony Irwin tried to get at on the latest episode of the Silver Screen and Roll podcast.
After spending the first segment of the show discussing the latest on the NBA and NBPA’s continuing negotiations over when the 2020-21 season will start, Harrison and Anthony looked back on Caldwell-Pope’s year, his up-and-down (and often-polarizing) Lakers career, and then debated how much he’ll be worth to the team moving forward.
Because of the weirdness of this free agency market and the context of their roster, Caldwell-Pope might literally be more valuable to the Lakers than he would be to any other NBA team, but retaining him could come at a steep price prior to what promises to be a very weird season regardless of which direction the Lakers go in with regards to bringing him back.
You can listen to the entire episode in the player embedded below, and to make sure you don’t miss a single one moving forward, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts.
You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen, and Anthony at @AnthonyIrwinLA.