Detroit Pistons: Can Kentavious Caldwell-Pope Reach New Heights?

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has developed into a steady contributor for the Detroit Pistons, but is there more to come?

Having entered the NBA as the eighth overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, it’s hard to make a definitive statement on whether Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has realized his potential through his first three seasons with the Detroit Pistons.

The 23-year-old has become a productive player and a key fixture in Stan Van Gundy’s rotation, but that doesn’t necessarily suggest that he couldn’t and won’t be doing more in the future.

Caldwell-Pope has improved his scoring average every season of his career so far, but zeroing in on his scoring does a disservice to the well-rounded player that the former Georgia Bulldog could become.

Long, athletic and versatile, with good instincts on both ends of the floor, Caldwell-Pope has always looked like a player who could break out and became one of the NBA’s best specialists.

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In years gone by, describing a player as a role player would have been viewed as derogatory, but with the passing of time the value of having players who understand their roles has become clearer than ever.

In no area is that shift more evident than in the realm of “three-and-D” experts. As the long shot has become more and more pervasive in its influence on NBA play, the importance of making and defending three-pointers has become vital. Therefore, players who can do both are like gold dust.

Turning pro after an outstanding sophomore season at Georgia, that’s what Caldwell-Pope was expected to be, but it hasn’t fully translated just yet.

For his NBA career to date, Caldwell-Pope has made only 32.7 percent of his 998 three-pointers, while a success rate of just better than 40 percent from the field overall is certainly nothing to write home about either.

A closer look into how those numbers are comprised leads to some interesting results too.

Although you’d expect a player to struggle with his shot when closely guarded, Caldwell-Pope also posted abysmal shooting percentages when he was left wide open last season.

According to NBA Stats, the 23-year-old attempted 176 field goals without a defender within six feet of him in 2015-16, but only managed to convert on 39.8 percent of those tries.

The picture gets even worse with wide open shots from behind the arc, as with 131 of those shots specifically being three-point attempts, KCP’s success rate sits just above his career average at 32.8 percent.

To put those numbers in context it’s necessary to look at how some of Caldwell-Pope’s three-and-D peers perform when left with open opportunities.

Instead, with his current numbers, Caldwell-Pope is keeping the company of the likes of Jeff Green, P.J. Tucker, Nik Stauskas and Wesley Johnson.

Caldwell-Pope has a smooth shooting stroke that looks as if it should be reliable and repeatable, so what’s going wrong? One potential issue could be that KCP struggles to maintain focus, and recent evidence would seem to back that up.

Although the Detroit Pistons got swept in their playoff series with the eventual champion Cleveland Cavaliers, Caldwell-Pope’s play was a revelation.

He locked in defensively, regardless of whether his assignment was Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith or LeBron James and even more notably he made his shots.

For that four-game series, KCP averaged 44 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from deep. Sure, it’s an incredibly limited sample size, but it remains notable all the same due to the stage and the opponent.

In what was Caldwell-Pope’s first taste of postseason play, he thrived against the team that was crowned champions.

With a higher intensity to play, a more focused goal and greater motivation, we got a taste of what the best of Caldwell-Pope could look like.

That extended to the wide open opportunities he was whiffing on in the regular season. In the playoffs, Caldwell-Pope shot 55.6 percent from the field and 50 percent from deep on shots where he had no defender within six feet of him.

Moving forward, the Pistons don’t even need him to be quite that good. By simply upping his success rate from distance to 40 percent (which equates to only making 10 more shots), KCP’s overall regular season three-point percentage would have bumped up by almost 3 percent.

With the combination of a top class point guard and center surrounding him in the form of Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond, the importance of small, understated gains when it comes to taking his chances is pivotal for both Caldwell-Pope and his team.

Drummond is dominant enough inside to draw double teams, just as Reggie Jackson’s incredible speed often requires help defenders. The result of that should be an abundance of easy shots for the likes of Caldwell-Pope, Stanley Johnson and Marcus Morris.

Caldwell-Pope is already a good player who has found a way to contribute in the box score, but the next step for him will come in becoming more efficient and reliable.

His skills and natural gifts lend themselves to KCP thriving from a role on the periphery of a game, where he can charge in to influence play in sudden bursts, but up until now it seems as if he has been getting lost in the lulls of a 48 minute contest.

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At only 23 years old, Caldwell-Pope has plenty left to offer, but it may only come to light if he finds a way to improve his concentration, lock in and own the role he seems tailor-made for.