Less than 24 hours after winning the Las Vegas Summer League, the Los Angeles Lakers held court in El Segundo and introduced new signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who joined the team on a one-year $18 million contract, as the starting shooting guard of the team.
"We needed a two-guard and a special two-guard that can play both sides of the ball but also has a high basketball I.Q., bring some toughness to the team and the floor," Lakers president of basketball operations Earvin "Magic" Johnson waxed poetic about the team's new signing. "He can guard the 1-position, the 2-position, the 3-position--man, I should have been playing with him myself--almost like Michael Cooper in a sense."
Brandon Ingram & Lonzo Ball are sitting front row for the KCP (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope) press conference. #Lakers pic.twitter.com/WpslhVDJss— Shahan Ahmed (@shahanLA) July 18, 2017
Johnson added, "Also, [he] can hit the three ball and take it to the basket. Just another explosive player that our Lakers will get a chance to play with."
As Johnson grew exited talking about the team he was assembling, the front row of the audience could hardly contain itself. That front row consisted of Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant, all of whom had taken the team bus back from Las Vegas to El Segundo in the morning and had stuck around for the press conference.
Magic Johnson goes down the line and meets with the Summer League champs sitting front row, as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope takes jersey pics. pic.twitter.com/xYcUKVPbkU— Shahan Ahmed (@shahanLA) July 18, 2017
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Larry Nance Jr., Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Kuzma and Ivica Zubac were also present at the facility, as the Lakers introduced their newest signing, illustrating the close involvement of the players. Only veterans Luol Deng, Brook Lopez and Corey Brewer were not visible in the flesh for Caldwell-Pope's introduction.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said, "I think it means a lot to the Lakers' family to have our guys come back from Vegas--literally the bus just got here--to show support for their newest teammate."
Caldwell-Pope is a 24-year-old guard that can shoot and defend, which fills two major needs for the Lakers of 2016-17.
As Johnson tells it, after he entered the team's management setup, he took to watching practices and watching games. What the 57-year-old saw was that teams had taken to sagging in and playing zones that invited the Lakers to shoot. Also, Johnson wanted a bit more intensity and competition in practice.
"I said, 'Man, we got to change and get some shooting in here and then we got to get some versatile guys that can play more than one position,'" Johnson shared his thoughts after watching practices in those early days in the front office.
Caldwell-Pope's defensive intensity and versatility, which the player cited as being more important than his three-point shooting at Tuesday's press conference, and shooting ability should help the Lakers address both areas that Johnson saw as problems.
"He gives our team versatility," Johnson said about the new signing. "We can cross match. In today's game, you have to have versatility, and so he gives us that."
While Johnson shared that the playoffs are always the goal at the start of the season, the executive did not seem to be in a rush to make proclamations and guarantees that the team would return to the postseason for the first time since the 2012 playoffs, when Dwight Howard and the Lakers were promptly swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs.
"We're already better," Johnson said when asked about expectations for the upcoming season. "The roster is more balanced. We saw the ball movement in Summer League, and that's what we want to see and what [Lakers coach] Luke (Walton) wants to see."
Johnson added, "I tell you what, I would not want to miss a Laker game this season because it's going to be exciting every single night."
