Lakers: 2 players that will exceed expectations and 2 that won’t
By Jason Reed
Won’t meet expectations: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
The Los Angeles Lakers needed to re-sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope this offseason and it was a great move to do so. Los Angeles re-signed KCP to a three-year, $39 million contract that has a partially guaranteed third season.
I might seem like I am contradicting myself. How was it such a great move for the Lakers to re-sign KCP if he is not going to live up to the expectations? Again, there are two parts to this answer.
First is because of the depth that he provides. The Lakers needed depth at the guard position and did not have a lot of cap space after their initial set of moves. They had Bird Rights on KCP and he is someone who is familiar with the Lakers.
The other part of this is that I simply think he is getting a little bit too overhyped because of this. KCP hit some big shots and came up big in the NBA Playoffs but he is still the same KCP that would frustrate all of us over the last several seasons.
KCP is valuable because of his familiarity in playing alongside LeBron James and is going to be a fine player in 2021. However, I would not expect him to take any sort of step forward after winning a title last season. He is going to be the same ol’ KCP at the end of the day.