Stan Van Gundy isn’t one to lightly heap praise on players without a resume. So your ears perk up at a few points he raised during a few minutes of talking about Kentavious Caldwell-Pope on his first day of his first training camp as Pistons coach.
He sprinkled it with caveats and cautions, but it’s pretty clear Van Gundy thinks Caldwell-Pope isn’t too far down the chain from Andre Drummond in any list of critical links to the Pistons’ future.
“You always look at players first to their strengths, where can a guy be great,” Van Gundy said about his second-year shooting guard, the No. 8 pick in 2013. “I think he can be an elite defender in this league at the two guard and we’ll look for that every night. I think he is a high-energy guy who can get up and down the floor and attack the basket in transition. Those two things have got to be his foundation.”
In Summer League, Caldwell-Pope carried the team’s offense in averaging 24 points a game. But he won’t be the first or second option at this point in his career, so Caldwell-Pope must affect games without the ball in his hands.
“On the offensive end, he’s going to have to slow down a little bit, get under control, and like a lot of people it will come down to how many shots he can make, how efficient he can be shooting the ball, how consistent can you be,” Van Gundy said. “But I think he’s got a great foundation with the defense and energy that will get him on the floor and give him a chance to develop in those other areas.”
Van Gundy studied the videotape of KCP’s splashy rookie-season finale at Oklahoma City when, subbing in the starting lineup for Rodney Stuckey, he scored a career-best 30 points in a spectacular two-way performance. It was an impressive showing by any measure, but Van Gundy won’t do backflips based on a one-game sample size.
“I watched it and it was good, but it’s one game,” he said. “Virtually everybody in this league can have a game. You’re not looking for the highlights. You’re looking for the guy who gets it done play after play after play after play, game after game after game after game. That’s where young players have to develop. Consistency is the key.”
But then there was this – and why Van Gundy feels pretty good about Caldwell-Pope’s chances to reach that stage of development.
“At least so far, just a couple of months around him – the Summer League experience and the month of September – he’s one of the more receptive guys that I’ve ever been around. He won’t just accept coaching, I think he really wants it. He wants to get better. I’m really, really happy with him.”
More later after the first practice of the second day of training camp.