The Detroit Pistons are building around their core group of players. One member of that core is two-way shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Caldwell-Pope, whom the Pistons selected eighth overall in the 2013 NBA draft, will become an unrestricted free agent next summer. The Pistons hope to re-sign Caldwell-Pope, but doing so could force them to pay the luxury tax; the Pistons have the NBA’s fourth highest payroll this season. Tom Gores, who owns the Pistons, says that he is willing to pay the tax. From Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press:
Gores: “Look, if we weren’t building a core, there’s really no point in paying the luxury tax. Because we are building a core, would I do it? Yeah, absolutely. This is a tremendous team. If you go down the line, player by player, and especially our young folks, these are real players. You look at KCP as a very diverse player. He keeps working at his game and you look at his improvement and just like anybody else, he will improve in other areas. Part of Stan’s coaching philosophy obviously is defense. So you say go into the luxury tax for nothing, then that would be silly because then we’re putting the franchise behind. But given that we have such a good core, if that’s what it took, and we feel we’ve made such progress this year, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it because we want to keep getting better.”
Caldwell Pope is a talented two-guard who, at the age of 23, still has plenty of time to improve. Projected to be a three-and-D player, Caldwell-Pope still has strides to make on both ends. His defense is very good and has steadily improved, but his shooting regresed in his third season; he shot 30.9% from three this season, as apposed to 34.5% in 2014-15. For Caldwell-Pope to be a true threat from deep, the Pistons will want him to get that percentage at least 38%, preferably higher.
