Los Angeles Lakers: Ranking each role player by importance

4. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

So we have several guys in Quinn Cook, Alex Caruso and Avery Bradley that could all shoot up this lists if they play to the best of their abilities. Someone would have to get knocked down the list and the leading candidate for that is Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

However, right now, KCP is more important to the Lakers. He is lined up to be one of the team’s most important three and D players and is going to see plenty of time with the first unit off the bench as he looks to have a bounceback year after two mediocre years in Los Angeles.

The only reason that KCP is more important than the others behind him right now is that he is likely set to have a bigger role to start the season. He is familiar with playing alongside LeBron and as a returner player is likely going to get more minutes than some of the other guys.

However, if he does not make the necessary improvements that he needs to make he quickly see himself fall down the totem pole not only in minutes played but in how important he is to the team.

Of course, the flip side to that is that he plays more as he did in Detroit than with the Lakers and shows improvements from the last two years. If that was the case, he would become an extremely important bench piece for the Lakers to turn to in the postseason.

Time will only tell.