Los Angeles Lakers: Ranking three worst contracts

3. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

The biggest criticism of LeBron James is that he makes average players look really good and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is the most recent benefactor of this phenomenon. KCP, as he is known, is simply an average player who, by virtue of spending time on the court with two superstars, has seen his value explode.

If he wasn’t on a championship-winning team do you think a player with the following statistics would ink a three-year $39 million contract?

Per Game Statistics

Minutes          Points          Assists         Rebounds           FG%              3FG%

  25.5                 9.3                1.6                   2.1                  46.7%           38.5%

Pope is going to make more than Montrezl Harrell the next two seasons after Harrell nearly doubled his points per game in a similar amount of court time. He is a one-trick pony in the Lakers’ offense. He catches and shoots with a lot of space because defenses aren’t as worried about him as they are about Anthony Davis and LeBron James.

It’s a good life for an average offensive player but it means he’s seriously overpaid. If Pope was a lockdown defender, this would be a fine contract but he has been mostly average on that end throughout his career and will be turning 28 in February.

The KCP contract is one of the small drawbacks of employing LeBron James. If LeBron is on your team, you have to overpay Klutch clients.

Organizations can bemoan this level of power but it hasn’t hurt LA’s performances in the slightest. James has made the Finals every single season he has been healthy for the past decade. So while KCP is on a bad contract, it’s one just about every team would gladly sign.