The Denver Nuggets won the first championship in franchise history this season, dispatching the Miami Heat in five games in the NBA Finals. They were led by the star tandem of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray who put up phenomenal performances throughout the Nuggets playoff run. But even so, the Nuggets aren't in this position without strong contributions from their role players. One player in particular who had big playoff games for the Nuggets was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. He's almost reinvented himself since he first got the NBA into one of the league's best 3-and-D guys. His game wasn't always like that though and on an episode of JJ Redick's podcast, The Old Man & The Three, Caldwell Pope explained how he's been able to transform his game.
“I would say staying consistent was the hardest for me. Just coming off the role of having the ball, getting a lot of pick and rolls, but then just cutting all that out and just being a 3-and-D guy, that was hard for me,” Caldwell-Pope said. “I had a lot more to my game and I felt like they were just trying to cut that half off. But I found joy in just being a 3-and-D guy. Coming out of college, that's what I leaned my head on, on defense. Just becoming a better shooter, that was like the next part of my career I needed to advance.”
This past season, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was often times the third best player for the Nuggets. During this playoff run he averaged 10.6 points per game, 3.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.3 steals with splits of 45.7 percent shooting from the field, 38 percent shooting from the three-point line and 82.9 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
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