Los Angeles Lakers: Behind Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s hot start

Since he joined the Los Angeles Lakers, I found myself writing numerous times about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s slow starts and generally underwhelming seasons in purple and gold, noting how his game rose only in the final stretches, when it did not matter anymore.

So, no wonder that last year, after another disappointing start, he finally emerged in the bubble and gave his best effort in the playoffs, helping the Lakers conquer their 17th championship.

Had anyone (myself included) given his opinion on KCP’s start of the 2021 season, predicting another abysmal debut for the beginning, he would have been sorely wrong.

Obviously, specifically talking about Kentavious’s game and performance, I’m mainly referring to his three-point shooting. As a 3-and-D specialist, his defensive effort has always been there, and, frankly, it is what earned him the playing time through these tumultuous years and allowed him to remain a Laker. But his shot had been at best erratic.

Well, with the world in turmoil among a global pandemic and the most controversial and anticipated U.S. Presidential Elections ever, Caldwell-Pope finally answered the call for the Los Angeles Lakers in the early stages of the 2020/21 season.

In a bit of an unexpectedly great start for the Lakers, favorite to repeat, he is putting on a show on a renewed roster that does not count anymore the three-pointer as his weakness.

KCP is contributing majorly to this new, unexpected aspect for the Lakers, shooting the lights out with an outstanding 47.9 percent from the field, good for seventh in the league. Through the first 16 games, he was leading the league at 56.9 percent.

He lately hit some kind of a wall, but it looks like he is getting back on track with a 3-for-6 night in the last game against the Atlanta Hawks. Furthermore, we can easily find a career-high 63.6 true shooting percentage in his advanced stat sheet.

What are the reasons behind this unexpected, albeit welcome, start of the season for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope?

Behind Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s hot start for the Los Angeles Lakers:

The easiest and maybe right answer is that there is not a reason. He is simply going through a good moment as many shooters do and his shot is falling. After all, despite what we said, he has remained a decent shooter as a whole throughout his years in Los Angeles, just with ups and downs.

But if we accept to exclude the fortuitous aspect, which more often than not cannot be taken as the sole variant in the performance of professional athletes, who take care of every detail without overlooking anything, some other reason might resonate.

In a tenure in Los Angeles where he faced a fair share of struggles, both individually and team-wise, Kentavious had lost his starting job and seen his paycheck drop year after year, as he could not obtain better guarantees than annual renewals in his partnership with the Lakers.

Although they confirmed their trust in him, the diminishing contracts and personal value on the market have certainly affected his self-confidence as a basketball player. Countless hours spent working to improve without the expected results would make anyone doubt himself.

Last season, despite another rocky start, the team, and especially Frank Vogel and LeBron James, kept trusting him and let him know personally and publicly that they had his back and the utmost confidence in him because they had seen in training camp what he was capable of.

This trust was certainly well deserved, as, after ups and downs, he finally emerged in the most important moment of the season, taking over the starting spot in the playoffs (only the second of his career!), shooting 39.5 percent from three from the second game on, and averaging 12.8 points in the NBA Finals.

In the wake of Avery Bradley‘s decision to remain out of the bubble for health concerns and Danny Green‘s underwhelming performance, he proved an instrumental piece in the Lakers’ path to the championship. The successful run finally earned him a multi-year contract worth $13 million annually, but more importantly the acknowledgment as a championship-caliber player.

With a new contract in the pocket, a championship ring at the finger and a great performance on the highest stage in the annals, he certainly had good reasons to face the new season with a sense of peacefulness, renewed self-confidence and optimism, ready to help his team fight for the back-to-back.

These factors could very well have played a prominent role in this outstanding start.

Despite some possible bumps, he now knows that when things go south, all he needs to care about is staying the course.