Los Angeles Lakers: The KCP experience continues to astonish

Just before his 10th and final 3-point attempt of a 113-106 Los Angeles Lakers victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hesitated. It was the last shot you’d think he’d reconsider, not only riding a hot hand with six makes in his first nine attempts but the beneficiary of a broken Bucks defense that left no defender within the vicinity.

KCP was shocked at the available space but eventually fired away, knocking down his seventh made triple on the night to finish with a season-high 23 points. A Laker lead that had been cut to two with under three minutes left was pushed back up to five, the turning-point shot that helped keep LA’s pristine road record intact at 8-0.

“He made seven threes?” a stunned Alex Caruso had to come to grips with after the game. “I didn’t even know that.”

Much to their benefit, the Los Angeles Lakers are watching Kentavious Caldwell-Pope continue to blossom into his best self.

Caldwell-Pope’s career in purple and gold is a remarkable tale of riding out the lows to bask in the glorious highs.

He arrived in the summer of 2017, considered more of a name on a cap sheet the Lakers had to fill with someone instead of an actual player who could help end a growing playoff drought. Many viewed the Klutch client as a thin connection LA could build upon to land LeBron James the following summer.

When given the chance to aid LeBron the following season, one of the few supposed shooters on the roster struggled to perform, shooting just 34.7 percent from three. The addition of Anthony Davis did little to cure KCP’s shooting woes early on, beginning the 2019-20 season making less than 25 percent of his triples through the first 10 games.

At a certain point, Caldwell-Pope looked a lot better in theory than in actual practice. The shooting and defense that were the ingredients to a successful — and highly needed — 3-and-D wing never seemed to click at a time when the Lakers began raising their expectations with each blockbuster offseason acquisition.

The bubble playoffs arrived for LA amid legitimate concerns regarding the shooting ability of those surrounding James and Davis. A lot of those fingers were directed at Caldwell-Pope, a starter who made 27.8 percent of his threes in the six seeding games he appeared in.

But then the playoffs actually began and KCP flipped a switch that laid in depths nobody knew existed. He shot 42.1 percent on 5.1 3-point attempts per game leading up to the Finals. Though his shot abandoned him in the championship round, Caldwell-Pope still managed to find ways to score in double-figures in all but one of the six games.

Caldwell-Pope wasn’t one of the two superstar engines who powered LA to the title. But timely shot-making, intelligent off-ball movement and pestering perimeter defense manifested whispers that he was next on the hierarchy.

“He was being highly criticized early in the season,” head coach Frank Vogel said of Caldwell-Pope after winning the title. “So when you show confidence and belief in someone and they reward you with their play, and it ends up in this situation leading to a championship, that’s just special and something I’ll never forget.”

It’s incredible what championship-bred confidence can do for a player. We’re getting a first-hand example with Caldwell Pope’s scorching start to LA’s title defense.

Of players who have attempted at least 50 3-pointers so far this season, KCP leads them all in efficiency at 56.9 percent, nearly six percentage points higher than the next closest peer.

The seven 3-pointers he made against Milwaukee were the most he’s hit since March 19, 2019. The circumstances that night were similar to this one, in the same arena against the same Bucks team. KCP hit eight threes then but required 14 attempts compared to just 10 looks more than 20 months later.

“I would say the confidence is from the work I’ve put in,” Pope said of his quick trigger. “I know where my shots are going to come from, where I need to be to even get those shots and just being in a great rhythm every game.”

The man seemingly only present in Southern California to collect checks is now earning every penny. He was rewarded with a multi-year contract this past offseason, the first of his career since his rookie-scale deal with the Pistons.

It is Caldwell-Pope who paces the Lakers in offensive and overall net rating, a testament not so much to the modest numbers he puts up but to the value he brings in elevating the Lakers in ways only he can.

“When you see a guy that plays as hard as he does, that brings value whether he’s making shots or missing shots, guys like that earn minutes,” Vogel said following the win over the Bucks. “When they earn minutes, they get more comfortable shooting the basketball and he really had a remarkable growth year last year and has taken it to another level this year.”

The totality of it all was unthinkable as recently as last October, and that’s what makes the reality of it all in 2021 so endearing.