Just in case there are people out there who don’t believe that contract-year pushes are a real thing, I present to you: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s numbers in the past few weeks. In the games that have happened since March 19th, he has scored 35, 7, 16, 29, 7, 25, 19, 23, 7, 25, and 32 points. That’s six twenty-point games after he only had five the entire rest of the season. These are like Trevor Ariza levels of playing for a contract, except Ariza’s always had the forethought to play well for the entire year leading up to a new contract, not just a few weeks.
If KCP was secure in the knowledge that he was going to get a big contract this off-season, it would be a lot easier for him to just coast through these final few Lakers games. There wouldn’t be any need to try so hard to score points. He could take it easy and then relax at home watching the playoffs from his couch. But KCP knows he’s had a down year this year, and he hopes that, by having some big scoring games at the end of the season, he’ll trick some GM’s into thinking that he can be a legit number three option on a playoff-bound team and should be paid like one.
I’m betting he still watches the playoffs from his couch, though. I feel like NBA players would lose their minds if they had to try to watch basketball with pathetic casuals like us. Imagine KCP sitting in a Buffalo Wild Wings while drunk guys with buffalo sauce all over their faces try to tell him that Eric Gordon is better than Klay Thompson and that Kevin Durant would have averaged 12 PPG in the 90’s.