Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is negotiating a contract buyout with the Memphis Grizzlies and intends to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers once he reaches the open market, according to Chris Haynes of NBA on Prime.
Nothing is done. The buyout has not been agreed, he has not cleared waivers, and no contract exists. The reporting is about intent, and the sequence has to happen in order.
If it does, it reunites Caldwell-Pope with LeBron James, who signed with the 76ers earlier this offseason.
The connection
Caldwell-Pope and James spent three seasons together with the Lakers and won the 2020 title in the Orlando bubble — James's fourth championship, and Caldwell-Pope's first.
They also share an agent: Rich Paul of Klutch Sports. That detail is not incidental. Buyout-and-sign sequences like this one tend to move quickly when the same representation is on both ends of the conversation, and it is a reasonable part of why the reporting reads as confident about where he lands.
What he would be giving up
Caldwell-Pope exercised a $21.6 million player option for 2026-27 earlier this summer. A buyout means handing back a negotiated share of that number.
Philadelphia, having already used its flexibility, is not in position to make him whole — James himself signed for roughly the veteran minimum. So this would be a 13-year veteran choosing a title chase over a substantial amount of guaranteed money, at an age when there are not many more contracts coming.
That is the part worth sitting with. It is the same calculation James made, and it only makes sense if a player believes the roster he is joining is genuinely close.
The complication nobody should skip
Caldwell-Pope shot 31.6 percent from three last season while averaging 8.4 points.
For most players that is a bad year. For this player it is closer to an existential one, because the entire case for Caldwell-Pope on a contender is that he defends and makes open threes. Take away the shooting and you have a 33-year-old wing whose defense is no longer elite either.
Philadelphia would be betting that the Memphis season was a slump rather than a decline — a reasonable bet at a minimum salary, and a very different bet at $21.6 million. Which is precisely why the buyout is the mechanism.
What happens next
Watch for three things in order: the buyout terms being agreed with Memphis, Caldwell-Pope clearing waivers, and only then a Philadelphia signing becoming official.
Until the first of those happens, this remains a report about what a player intends to do — and intent, in an NBA offseason, has a mixed record of surviving contact with the salary cap.
