Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was one of the big acquisitions for the Los Angeles Lakers. With his new team, he hopes to make the playoffs.
It ended up being a very busy offseason for the Los Angeles Lakers. With Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka in charge, plenty of moves were made this offseason.
The new leadership certainly has a plan for the organization. They want to develop the young talent that they have, and then hope to sign one of two premier free agents next offseason. Since the Lakers were unwilling to give out multi-year deals this offseason, it limited them somewhat in free agency.
After the Detroit Pistons surprisingly renounced Caldwell-Pope, he became an unrestricted free agent. With the free agency process being well under way already, the options were somewhat limited for Caldwell-Pope.
While the Lakers didn’t want to offer anyone a multi-year deal, they did have a lot of money to spend for just one season. The one-year, nearly $20 million per year contract was enough to lure Caldwell-Pope to Los Angeles.
Now that Caldwell-Pope is a member of the Lakers, he will be trying to help break the streak of the Lakers missing the playoffs. However, he knows it won’t be easy.
On Uninterrupted’s Open Run podcast, Caldwell-Pope discussed the possibility of the Lakers making the playoffs this season. Here’s what he had to say via Trevor Lane of LakersNation.com.
"“I think everybody this summer has gotten better we just gotta bring that chemistry and bring it together. We just wanna take it one step at a time, one game at a time before we even think about talking about the playoffs. I mean that’s a goal. We want to make the playoffs but we wanna take it one game at a time to get to that.”"
Caldwell-Pope was very open about the not only the Lakers improving, but the entire Western Conference improving. While the Lakers should be better than they were last season, they would have to take a huge jump forward to make the playoffs next season.
With a lot of young talent on the team, there is going to be some growing pains in Los Angeles. Even though players like Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram are special talents, it’s hard to expect them to be superstars at this age.
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However, the Lakers might be able to surprise team in the Western Conference if they build chemistry quickly. As a very solid player, Caldwell-Pope will certainly play a big role for the Lakers next season.