This already looks SO much better...

This is already looking so much better for the Memphis Grizzlies. Now, I want to be respectful of KCP, but the way the NBA media is talking about him now, this Grizzlies move, at least on paper, looks a thousand times better. Forces buyout we talked about last week, 76ers taking him, teaming up with LeBron for a second stint. Last time that happened, it was in 2020, the bubble. Some might say an NBA championship. Some might say an NBA championship, but at least the Grizzlies are off KCP now. He's making a year of $3.9 million, but this looks like a win, even more so on paper. We'll get into that very shortly. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Grizzlies Digest, bringing you the latest news and updates on everything Grizzlies related. We are now in August, ladies and gentlemen. Can you believe it? How fast this year, this calendar year has flown by. We're now in the month of college football. A little bit of a dead period in the NBA, but we're going to keep you up to date right here on Grizzlies Digest. But thank you to all the folks that still are tuning in, subscribing, liking, commenting, and sharing your thoughts here as we are deep in now in the offseason. But this video, as you can see from the thumbnail, is about Contavious Caldwell Pope. Now, of course, he was involved in the Desert Dane trade and the Grizzlies had a buyout for him and KCP was, at least he was taken up, snatched up by the Philadelphia 76ers. But the way Lakers riders are talking about him, or at least one Lakers talk about him, I think the Grizzlies are going to be just fine. Now, this is from Josh Cornelison of the Lake Show Life. That's the Lakers fan-sided page. And he says, instead of Tyree or Anthony Davis, LeBron is settling for a washed up KCP. That is one of the worst names you could get. You know, I mean, he's been around this league a long time. He's now reaching his mid-30s next season. But why is this a washed up KCP? Why is he not as charmed or well-liked as he once was six years ago? I mean, other than the fact that he's gotten older, but why is that? This is what Josh Cornelison said. So, unfortunately for LeBron, in the end, the only former championship teammate he can find is a washed up end of his career Kentavious Caldwell-Polk. Now, he did start to lose a little bit of value, I think, once he went to the Orlando Magic. That was back in the 24-25 season. And we thought, okay, maybe he just had an off year. You know, I mean, he's not shooting the basketball well. He's not shooting it as much. Obviously, Paolo Bancaro and Franz Wagner are the ones fully in charge of that Orlando Magic team. But you at least think that a championship three and a veteran has some kind of spot on that team. And now it's grown to the point where Wendell Carter is getting a lot of good looks. Who else? I mean, we had, you know, you have Ante Black on that team. You have Mo Wagner on that team. Well, at least until he was let go. But you had plenty of other guys, Jalen Suggs, plenty of other guards on that team making a lot of minutes. But he really started to fall apart that year. And then with the Grizzlies, he didn't really do much. And I guess that's why, I guess you could call him washed up now. At least that's what Josh Cornelison says of Lakeshield Life and continuing his article here. Last season, battling injuries and an ice cold jump shot, Caldwell Pope was a massively negative player on both ends of the court. To the point that the Memphis Grizzlies would have been better off signing a player off the street and playing them over him. By the end of the season, they were doing just that. Now a lot of players were injured. I don't want to say that everything was all fine and good about having much players injured, but he included, but a massively negative player on both ends of the court. Now, I think we can go at plus minus numbers all we can, but this is just not the team for him. And of course, we're going to get into a few more of his, of his article points here. But this is just not the team for him. I think I made a little bit of a joke on a couple videos ago saying if you're between the ages of 18 to 23, you have a spot on the team. You clearly have a spot on the team. But your KCP, I mean, even if you're like 28, 29, kind of towing the line a little bit, but KCP right now at 33 years old, I believe, this is just not the spot for him. He's not going to get playing time. Even if he does, is he going to shoot one for nine from deep? I mean, we're just depending on him to shoot threes and make threes. And we have the personnel for guys to do a lot more. So only he can be that kind of three-point specialist. Now I'm not trying to compare him to like Steve Novak or anything for all you guys my age who have followed the game from middle school going back to Steve Novak back with the New York Knicks some 15, 16 years ago. But he's just not the guy for this team. And we'll go into one more of one of his nuggets here. So I talked about a couple guys that are really going to impact the team a lot better than what he did last season. And this is about the best quote that Josh Cornelius has. Or perhaps he's cooked. And the 76ers will be looking for a replacement in just a few months. LeBron left behind the star power of LA for the star power of Philadelphia. But in doing so, he cannot find a co-star he trusts. Well, that's, I don't know about that last part of the sentiment, but LeBron just kind of waited for the market to do its thing. And Jalen Brown, he saw that happen. And then nearly a month later, he goes and joins the 76ers. Cyrus Maxey and Joel Embiid are obviously the face of that team right now. And I'm including Maxey in that because of Embiid's injury issues. And then you got LeBron who's 41, going to be 42 in December. And the only real co-star that he wanted to get, he's only getting in KCP. I think the Grizzlies are, you know, even smarter looking at this article for making that type of move. But two guys that I think really could make a difference that are not KCP and ones that I think are really going to shine really fast. One has already been doing it. That's Cam Spencer. He's such a competent shooter. Basically, on one of the most friendly deals in the NBA that's producing so well. He's getting even more confident in his jump shot, his three-point jump shot. Such a competent guy out there. He was already basically getting more out of it than Caldwell Pope already was. So, I think elevating him even more, I think it's a smarter move. And then you got the rookie, Kareem Lopez, a first ever Mexican-born player to be drafted in the first round. I think he's kind of a jack-of-all-trades player. That's definitely not what Caldwell Pope is. I mean, we're just thinking about him as a three and D specialist, three-point specialist. Right now, Kareem Lopez is looking like he can do it all out there. He can offensive rebound, defensive rebound, score from in the paint, score from outside. He's a really good playmaker. Find his teammates. I think he's going to be someone who is someone that Grizzlies fans are going to fall in love with pretty fast. So, I think we have a great team as it is. I mean, look at this. I mean, we got Cedric Cowan. We got Jalen Welch. We got Ty Jerome. We got Scottie Pippen. We got Pete Stew. We got Zachy. We got all these guys that are going to play Jeremy Grant, that are going to play so much that you're not even going to think about JCP or even John Moran. Now, that's again, that's maybe going too far. But from a playing aspect, I mean, come on guys. This is a really fun team that I think could really surprise a lot of people. So, that's going to do it for this video. Thank you so much for watching. Like, comment, subscribe to the video. Comment down below on KCP, on Cam Spencer, on Kareem Lopez. Yeah, those guys are really going to impact it more well. And I think that those two are going to immediately make us forget anything about how well-felt. Respectfully, we still find players still in the NBA. Gotta respect them. But the Grizzlies are looking smarter every day getting him off the ball. So, that's going to do it for this video. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you in the very next video.