Brooklyn Nets to Pursue Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
In the past couple of years, the Brooklyn Nets made teams sweat by pursuing their restricted free agents and presenting them with lucrative offer sheets. They did it with Tyler Johnson and Allen Crabbe last summer, and they also went after Donatas Motiejūnas last December. Unfortunately, the Nets failed in the attempt to sign all three because they had their offers matched by their teams.
This summer, the Nets decided to target Otto Porter Jr. and he agreed to sign a four-year, $106.5-million max contract offer sheet. But once again, the Nets failed to get their man because the Wizards decided to match the offer to bring him back to Washington.
However, this time they are not planning to go home empty-handed.
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According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nets are expected to pursue Kentavious Caldwell-Pope after they missed out on Porter.
"The Brooklyn Nets are planning to be an aggressive pursuer of Caldwell-Pope, angling to pair him in a young backcourt with D'Angelo Russell, league sources told ESPN," Wojnarowski wrote in his report.
The Los Angeles Lakers are reportedly interested in Caldwell-Pope as well, but they are only willing to offer him a one-year deal because they want to preserve their salary cap for the 2018 offseason.
The Detroit Pistons renounced their rights to Caldwell-Pope after they acquired Avery Bradley from the Boston Celtics. The Pistons have been reluctant to meet Caldwell-Pope's $25-million-plus asking price. So with a cheaper, and arguably better, two-way guard like Bradley in the fold, they no longer needed to bring him back.
Caldwell-Pope has made significant strides as a lockdown defender in the past few seasons, and he has continued to work on his offensive game. His shooting percentages are still below average at this point, but the solid perimeter defense he provides more than makes up for it.
