A number of teams are interested in the services of Lakers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope following his one-year stint in Los Angeles, Michael Scotto of The Athletic tweets.
Although the Grizzlies are the only team that Scotto specifically names, ESPN’s Chris Haynes adds that the Clippers will go so far as to meet with the swingman on July 1.
In 74 games with the Lakers, Caldwell-Pope averaged 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per contests but while his career stat lines appear to have stagnated, he’s a renowned 3-and-D option still just 25 years old.
As things stand, the Grizzlies have approximately $9MM in cap room for this season, which would be considerably less than the $18MM he signed on for with the Lakers last summer.
The Clippers, with DeAndre Jordan‘s $24.1MM player option now off the books, will be able to offer slightly more than Memphis, approximately $14MM. In that situation, it’s likely that he’d replace pending free agent Avery Bradley.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Clippers aren’t interested in bringing Bradley back, however, as Brad Turner of The Los Angeles Times reports. Bradley and the Clippers will also be in touch on July 1.
Ironically, the Pistons essentially replaced then-restricted free agent Caldwell-Pope with Bradley last summer when the opportunity to acquire the latter from the Celtics came up ahead of the Gordon Hayward deal.
You heard it here first either Bradley or IT going back to Boston for the MLE.