September 20, 2026
Petre Thomas/IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
LeBron James has won three championships with three teams. If he makes it four this season, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will remain only one behind.
Welcome to PhillyVoice's series of Sixers player previews ahead of the 2026-27 season.
After two years of volatility, Sixers fans entered this offseason teetering on apathy. Then came new Sixers President of Basketball Operations Mike Gansey, the architect of what became a dream summer. Gansey traded Paul George away, landing five-time All-Star Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics. As Gansey accumulated depth around Brown, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, the door opened for an unfathomable addition.
LeBron James is a member of the Sixers, rounding out one of the most talented starting lineups in recent NBA history. And suddenly, the Sixers have cultivated more local and national interest than ever before. Games are not won on paper, but the Sixers are built to be full-blown championship contenders for however long James remains in Philadelphia.
As Sixers Media Day on Sept. 28 nears, our player preview series will focus on two key questions surrounding each member of the team's 14-player standard roster.
Up next: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, a two-time NBA champion as a starter with plenty of experience fitting in around stars. Within a day of James making his decision to join the Sixers, Caldwell-Pope followed suit. After back-to-back down seasons with the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies, the 33-year-old 3&D guard is setting out to reestablish himself as a rotation-caliber piece on a contending team.
SIXERS PLAYER PREVIEWS
Joel Embiid | Labaron Philon Jr. | Dean Wade | Dominick Barlow
Adem Bona | Tyrese Maxey | VJ Edgecombe
Jaylen Brown | Ariel Hukporti | Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
There are so many individual skills and tendencies that are critical within any NBA game – so many more than could ever be listed in one box score or scouting report. So much of what happens on a basketball court – at least at this level – does not stand out to the casual observer. It is an endlessly complex game dependent on so many moving parts.
And yet, for players like Caldwell-Pope, an exorbitant amount of their value is wrapped up in one question: Will they consistently make open catch-and-shoot threes?
The reality is that, even if Caldwell-Pope proves to be one of this team's best perimeter defenders, utilizes his championship experience to make heady plays and serves as a valuable leader in the locker room, he will be a fringe rotation player if he happens to have a down season from beyond the arc as a result of pure variance.
Yet, if Caldwell-Pope continues to slide as a defender but happens to luck into a 40-plus percent mark from three-point range, it will be hard for Sixers head coach Nick Nurse to keep him out of the rotation. That is life as a perimeter-oriented role player without on-ball utility.
In a seven-year period encompassing his entire tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers, one-year stop with the Washington Wizards and two-year run as part of the Denver Nuggets, Caldwell-Pope shot 38.9 percent from three-point range on 4.9 attempts per game (7.7 attempts per 100 possessions). Sure, he benefitted from playing alongside James, Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokić, among other stars, but 38.9 percent is 38.9 percent, especially when combined with Caldwell-Pope's stout perimeter defense against guards of all sizes and styles.
The Magic, in need of that skillset specifically, gave Caldwell-Pope a significant three-year contract, believing he could easily fit alongside franchise cornerstone forwards Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner. Then came a major disappointment of a season; Caldwell-Pope only shot 34.2 percent from long distance. It prompted Orlando's trade for Desmond Bane, and suddenly Caldwell-Pope was miscast on a Grizzlies team without players capable of generating advantages for him to capitalize on as a spot-up shooter. He only shot 31.6 percent from three-point territory in his lone year in Memphis.
Caldwell-Pope will unquestionably have the benefit of getting easier long-range looks in Philadelphia. To what degree the Sixers can rely on him to knock them down will determine whether he is a useful piece of deep depth or a rotation regular.
SIXERS FILM STUDIES
Jaylen Brown's strengths | Jaylen Brown's weaknesses
Anfernee Simons | Dean Wade | Ariel Hukporti
Caldwell-Pope is listed at 6-foot-5 and 204 pounds with a solid 6-foot-8 wingspan; he is nominally a shooting guard but has defended point guards and smaller wings at times in his career, too.
As he tries to prove he is worthy of minutes over players like Dominick Barlow, Justin Edwards and Labaron Philon Jr., it would be to Caldwell-Pope's benefit to show off an ability to slide up or down the positional spectrum. Can he be an option to defend Jalen Brunson on opening night against the New York Knicks, then handle a Cade Cunningham assignment when the Detroit Pistons come to town the following week?
As Nurse crafts a rotation around five high-priority, high-usage starters, he will be looking for as much versatility and optionality as possible on his bench. That is why Dean Wade has a chance to be particularly valuable on this team; Wade is a proven commodity defending at least four positions and has shot more accurately from beyond the arc in recent years than Caldwell-Pope.
Can Caldwell-Pope provide a similar sense of flexibility? For now, there might be one rotation spot for him or Barlow when the Sixers are at full strength, and last year Barlow was a considerably better player.
Even if Caldwell-Pope settles in as the first player out of the regular rotation, he will have plenty of chances to contribute to a team expected to have many planned absences. That would be well worth the veteran's minimum price point at which the Sixers signed him. But if Caldwell-Pope is a legitimately viable defender across three positions, Nurse will have no choice but to lean on him.
SIXERS SIGN LEBRON JAMES
James' decision | Projecting Sixers' rotation | James' impact, on and off the court
