Nuggets free agent tops Athletic rankings, receives astronomical contract projection

Former NBA executive and current NBA insider for the Athletic puts together detailed and in-depth rankings of all free agents by position. On Tuesday, he released his rankings of available shooting guards this summer which included 38 players and seven tiers.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope atop free agent shooting guard rankings

 At the top of the rankings, was the starting shooting guard from the Denver Nuggets, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Hollinger prefaced the list by stating that the class of shooting guard free agents is underwhelming, and he has no players in his top tier, ‘Max and near max guys’.

But number one on the list and right at the top of Tier II, ‘More than midlevel exception, less than max’, is KCP. He’s the first of six shooting guards in that tier and has the highest projected salary according to Hollinger’s algorithm, his BORD$ valuation.

The Athletic projects massive salary value for KCP

That metric projected KCP’s value at a whopping $27,458,874 per year, which is almost double his pending player-option of $15.4 million. This is obviously in line with the thinking that reasons Caldwell-Pope will opt out and become an unrestricted free agent.

Hollinger went on to explain that he thinks teams could line up to pay KCP in a similar manner to how Bruce Brown got paid last offseason; a short-term, big-money contract. Brown received a two-year, $46 million deal with a team option and Hollinger believes that KCP could get the same offer - but for even more money.

Nuggets going to have their hands full trying to re-sign Caldwell-Pope

He speculated that it wouldn’t be crazy for a team to offer Caldwell-Pope a contract along the lines of three years, $80 million with year three being a team option. That would be an awful lot of money for the Nuggets to dole out for Caldwell-Pope, hence the urgency for them to negotiate a new deal before he hits the open market in less than a week.

The article also points out that the one advantage Denver may have in negotiations with Caldwell-Pope is being able to offer him more years and a bigger guaranteed payday down the road. The team could backload the deal, something like a four-year, $97 million extension that would keep him signed until age 35.

It’s hard to know what would be more appealing to Caldwell-Pope and how much he values his current situation in Denver. Hopefully, it’s a lot and he wants to stay and try to help the Nuggets win another title. But if he’s seeking the most possible money next year, it’s looking more and more likely that it will be with a new team.