Appreciating Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s drives
By Dan Feldman
"It can take years for a young shooting guard to get comfortable attacking off the bounce, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has looked tentative on driving opportunities for most of his brief career. But over the last few weeks, he has been more aggressive slicing past defenders rushing to close out on his jumper:This is the exact sort of drive any shooting guard must master in order to be a heavy-minutes rotation guy. Some players just aren’t meant to be primary ball handlers — guys who juke past a set defense one-on-one or with the help of only a ball screen. Some wing guys need a head start — the momentum edge they get when their defender has to sink into the lane on a help assignment, switch directions, and sprint back out to the 3-point arc.If Caldwell-Pope can master that kind of drive and eventually learn to throw passes out of it, the Pistons have something."
This is a nice development for Caldwell-Pope. He’s not shifty enough to regularly take opponents off the dribble, but his straight-line drives can work when his defender is scrambling.
Caldwell-Pope still projects as a 3-and-D guard, but these counters only make him more valuable. They needn’t become a staple of his game, just another weapon in the belt.
As for passing as the defense rotates to defend the drive, that appears to be a way off. Caldwell-Pope is about as far from a distributor as you get in a starting guard, which is part of the reason Stan Van Gundy’s point guard dominate the ball.