Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is declining his $15.4 million player option and entering unrestricted free agency as expected, a league source confirmed to The Denver Post.

Caldwell-Pope, 31, has spent the last two seasons in Denver after being acquired in a trade that sent Monte Morris and Will Barton to the Wizards. With tenacious defense and creative locker room leadership tactics, KCP proved to be the final piece that Denver’s starting lineup needed to win the NBA championship in 2023. He averaged 10.1 points on 40.6% 3-point shooting this season, was a finalist for NBA Teammate of the Year and received 11 All-Defensive Team votes after helping the Nuggets improve from the 15th-ranked defense in the league to eighth-best.

Denver will attempt to re-sign Caldwell-Pope in free agency, but he’s expected to attract a sizable market that will make it difficult to keep him. On Wednesday night after the first round of the draft, general manager Calvin Booth forecasted a scenario in which Denver doesn’t retain Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, expressing confidence in Christian Braun as the potential next man up.

“I think we have to look at everything, and the nature of free agency is, he’s unrestricted,” Booth said. “So we can try to bring him back, and if he doesn’t want to come back or opts to go somewhere else, that’s his prerogative. So we’ll have to work with that. But I think we’re prepared to plug and play, so to speak.”

The Nuggets have Caldwell-Pope’s Bird rights, allowing them to match other teams’ offers even if it means paying further into the luxury tax. But if they re-sign him, they will likely cross the second tax apron, even after Thursday’s salary-dump trade of Reggie Jackson to Charlotte. Becoming a second-apron would impose several roster-building restrictions. Among them, the Nuggets would be prevented from sending out Caldwell-Pope in a sign-and-trade for another player.

In the first 11 years of his career, Caldwell-Pope has only missed 46 regular-season games. According to data from Synergy Sports, he spent 49% of his on-ball defensive time this season matched up against a scoring ball-handler — the fourth-highest percentage of any defender in the league. Denver has relied on him heavily to guard opposing star players, and he finished 2023-24 with a defensive field goal percentage of 44%.

Retaining or losing Caldwell-Pope is essentially a question of whether Denver’s championship starting unit will stay together for a third season after playoff disappointment in 2024. The five-man lineup of Caldwell-Pope, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic registered an exceptional net rating of plus-13.6 in the regular season while playing 958 minutes together — more than any five-man lineup in the last six NBA seasons. But in 274 playoff minutes, their net rating together was minus-6.0. Denver was eliminated by the Timberwolves in the second round, with Caldwell-Pope shooting and defending below his usual standard.

Booth on Wednesday cited Braun’s net rating as an encouraging indicator of the 23-year-old’s ability to replace Caldwell-Pope in the starting lineup if needed. Braun’s individual net rating for the 2023-24 season was only 0.7 compared to Caldwell-Pope’s 11.3, but Braun played primarily with bench lineups while Caldwell-Pope shared the floor with league MVP Nikola Jokic for 91% of his minutes.

In the small 28-minute sample size when Braun was used in a five-man lineup alongside Denver’s other four starters, the Nuggets outscored opponents by 8.6 points per 100 possessions. Most importantly, when Braun shared the floor with Jokic (47% of his minutes), his net rating was 15.4. Coach Michael Malone used Braun in closing lineups multiple times during the Minnesota series, in place of Porter.

“I think (for) Christian Braun, it’s all going to come down to one thing,” Malone said in his end-of-season news conference. “To be a shooting guard in the NBA, you’ve got to be able to make shots. It’s the bottom line.”

Free agency negotiations are allowed to begin between all teams and players at 4 p.m. MT Sunday.

“I think when you look at some of the teams that have been good in the past, they have to find a way to replace fourth, fifth starters, sixth men off the bench and still keep rolling,” Booth said. “… I think if (Braun) has to step into the starting lineup, I think we’ll be OK, if KCP doesn’t return.”

Originally Published: June 27, 2024 at 3:31 p.m.