The Los Angeles Lakers and free agent Kentavious Caldwell-Pope agreed to a one-year deal.
The Los Angeles Lakers are finally on the board in free agency. After swinging and missing with a number of free agents, the Lakers have finally agreed to a deal with a player.
According to Brian Windhorst of ESPN, the Lakers have signed free agent shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to a one-year deal.
Caldwell-Pope played the first four seasons of his NBA career with the Detroit Pistons. Windhorst reports that he will earn $18 million in his one-year deal with the Lakers.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has agreed to a one-year, $18 million deal with the Lakers, sources tell ESPN.
— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) July 12, 2017
This is a great deal for the Lakers. For starters, they retain their future cap space that caused them to miss out on other free agents. The Lakers tried to sign George Hill and Dion Waiters with one-year balloon deals as well earlier in free agency. But, both landed long-term deals with the Sacramento Kings and Miami Heat respectively.
The Lakers’ patience wound up paying off for them as they took advantage of the market. Caldwell-Pope began the offseason as a restricted free agent. As a restricted free agent, the Pistons had the chance to match any offer sheet that Caldwell-Pope received. That cooled his market.
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The Pistons did not wait for him to get an offer. Detroit went out and basically replaced Caldwell-Pope. With the 12th pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, they selected Duke shooting guard, Luke Kennard. In free agency, the Pistons signed combo guard Langston Galloway to a lucrative contract.
The Galloway signing put a hard cap on the Pistons, which meant they couldn’t match an offer for Caldwell-Pope that paid him more than $16 million. The nail in the coffin for Caldwell-Pope with the Pistons was when they acquired Avery Bradley from the Boston Celtics for Marcus Morris.
With Bradley more than capable of being the starting shooting guard, the Pistons renounced the rights on Caldwell-Pope, making him an unrestricted free agent. Caldwell-Pope was at a disadvantage heading to the market so late in the game and the Lakers took full advantage.
Caldwell-Pope went into free agency hoping to land a max offer sheet. After seeing Tim Hardaway Jr. sign a four-year, $71 million offer sheet, it seemed that Caldwell-Pope would have no problem landing a big contract as well.
That offer never came to Caldwell-Pope, so he and the Lakers were a perfect match. The Lakers are in need of a shooting guard. Two of the weakest parts of the team, three-point shooting and defense, is what Caldwell-Pope excels at.
While he didn’t land a long-term deal, Caldwell-Pope landed in a place that he can put up strong numbers. If he continues to improve on what was a career season in many aspects in 2016-17, he will enter free agency again next year with an even better case for a long-term deal.
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This is an excellent deal for the Lakers. They fill a big need and retain their future cap space. Lakers fans that were getting antsy that the team wasn’t signing anyone yet should be very happy about this deal.