On The Topic of Kentavious Caldwell Pope

The NBA season is back (sorry Chris) and that means that it’s time for me to talk about a player on the Lakers who drives me insane. I’m of course talking about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. 

If you’re unfamiliar with KCP, let me give you a little bit of background. 

KCP was drafted in 2013 to the Detroit Pistons. They drafted him expecting him to develop into a prototypical 3 and D kind of player. Think a Danny Green or a Klay Thompson. The Pistons held onto him through the length of his Rookie deal until 2017 when they renounced his rights, a little unexpectedly, during that summer. At that moment, the Lakers were looking for ways to fill out their roster with a little more shooting. They paid him 18 Million dollars for one year. That was an insane price to pay for a player like that, but the Lakers had no other way to spend their cap that summer plus KCP had something a little intangible.

He was a client of Rich Paul. 

You may have heard of Rich Paul. He is the agent of Lebron James. At the time, the Lakers were heavily rumored to be in the running to sign Lebron the very next summer, 2018. Many experts saw the KCP signing as a sort of ‘Lebron Tax.” It was a way for them to say to Lebron and Rich Paul, “Hey, if you sign here we’ll take care of you and your friends.”

KCP didn’t play great in 2017. He was brought to the Lakers to do two things: play defense and shoot threes. He didn’t do either of those particularly well. But, no one on the Lakers played well that year, so whatever. It was a one year over pay. Who cares. 

July 3rd, 2018. I was sitting on my couch in my living room when I got the notification: “Lebron James has signed with the Lakers.” I obviously lost my mind at this news. This was a decision from Lebron that could revive my favorite Basketball team. The next logical question was “Who was going to sign with him?”

Javale Mcgee signed first. Then came Lance Stevenson (who is out of the league right now). And then Rondo. None of those were particularly exciting, but they didn’t make me mad. Not even Rondo. 

Then we resigned KCP. For Twelve Million dollars. WHAT?! Why? I know he’s a Rich Paul client, but freaking 12 Mill!!!! I was not happy. Why would we overpay that guy again? 

The 2018 season for the Lakers was a disaster. A lot went wrong. KCP didn’t help. He had some great games near the end of the season, but he seemed unable to play well when it actually mattered. Seriously, that dude averaged over 20 points a game AFTER the Lakers were eliminated from Playoff contention. Where was that when we needed it in freaking January? But whatever, at least we’d be done with him after the end of the season. 

We resigned KCP to another year in the Purple and Gold for Eight Million dollars this summer. And aside from the “he’s sign with Rich Paul” thing, I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Why would the front office think we need this dude? It hasn’t worked the past two years, why would it work out this year? 

And then the first game of the season came. And KCP (for some stupid reason) played 27 minutes. He scored zero points. ZERO. He was also tasked with guarding Kawhi for large parts of that game and Kawhi made him look like a fool. KCP had a +/- of -8 in his first game. Statistically speaking, it would have been better to have had only four players out there than to have five and one of them be KCP. 

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THIS BUM KEEPS GETTING PAYED. Worse yet, he somehow managed to sneak a NO TRADE CLAUSE in his contract this year. We can’t even flip this dude. 

The only thing I can figure is that KCP and Rich Paul have pulled a Fyre Fest on the Lakers Front Office and somehow talked such a big game that they can’t help but keep resigning this fool. It’s one of the greatest heists I’ve ever seen a mediocre player pull on an NBA Front Office. (Almost as bad as Jaylen Brown somehow swindling his way into a 115 Million Dollar Contract from the Boston Celtics)

The Front Office is clearly to blame here. They keep paying this dude to play basketball bad for their team. But, so far as I’m concerned, the blame is shifting. It’s the Front Office’s fault for the fact that KCP is on the roster, but it’s our Coaching Staff’s fault for putting him out on the court. Every minute KCP gets from here on out is Frank Vogel’s fault. 

Frank Vogel needs to have the courage to sit KCP the freak down because at some point KCP isn’t the Front Office’s mistake, it’s his. 

Here’s the thing, we don’t always get to pick what gets handed to us, but we always get to decide what we do with what’s handed to us. And if something isn’t working, it’s up to us to decide to go a different direction. 

We’re EIGHT weeks into this year’s Fantasy Football season. Chance’s are, we know what’s working. We know what players are putting up numbers. We know who we need to have on our bench to cover bye weeks and to handcuff our stars. 

We also probably know what isn’t working. 

In Fantasy Football, and in life, we can chalk up bad results to our circumstances for a while. We can say things like: the person who did this before me handed me a mess. My star QB is less the star I thought he’d be and more a literal trash can with arms. The front office signed a scam artist who is really good at pretending like he can play defense and hit spot up threes. But, after a while, if we don’t make adjustments in our lives, fantasy lineups, or basketball rotations, the responsibility for those bad results fall on us. We can keep pointing to our circumstances, bad luck, or mistakes made by other people but there comes a point in every area of our lives where we have to take responsibility for our own results.

And that point is right now. 

What in your life right now is bad and you know it. And you could do something about it but you haven’t because you didn’t create the problem? What if you said “I don’t care how this happened, I just want it to be better” and you did something about it? What if you decided to do whatever it took to get the results that you want to see instead allowing your circumstances to dictate your success. 

Let’s be Fantasy Owners, and people, who don’t allow bad circumstances to cause us to settle for mediocrity in our lives. Let’s be people who look at the circumstances we’ve been handed and say “Forget this, I’m gonna do better.” 

It doesn’t matter that one of your coworkers is doing a trash job. Do YOUR job the best you can anyway. Eventually, you’ll be seen for the productive worker you are. 

It doesn’t matter that a friend isn’t reciprocating your friendship in the way that you’d want. If the relationship is worth it to you, be the best darned friend you can be. You may actually show that person what a good friendship looks like.

It doesn’t matter that your star player got hurt. Figure out a way to put out a good line up anyway. Those who win fantasy football are those who keep at it. 

And Frank Vogel, it doesn’t matter that KCP is getting paid Eight Million Dollars this year, keep that fool on the bench. Because like all of us with our fantasy rosters, we may not get to decide what hand we get dealt, but we always decide what cards to play. 

And you really need to take KCP out of the deck.