Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s move to Philadelphia got off to a wild start before he even suited up for the 76ers. His wife, McKenzie Caldwell-Pope, said the family’s new home was struck by lightning, turning what should have been a routine arrival into a scene she described as chaos.
McKenzie said the trouble started almost immediately after she got to the building. “A little backstory, my husband played for the Grizzlies last year,” McKenzie said.
“This year, he’s on the 76ers. So I had to meet the movers that packed up everything from Memphis and moved it to Philly.
So I get here, I meet my moving coordinator, everything’s going smoothly. Literally, I’m here for maybe 30 minutes.
Minutes after I signed the lease, you guys. I hear the loudest bang I’ve ever heard in my life.”
She was on the penthouse floor when things escalated fast. “All of a sudden, s*** starts shooting out of the ceiling and water is pouring in, dumping in,” McKenzie said.
“So everyone just starts screaming, and we’re like, we have to get out of here. When I say it was coming, there was at least two, three inches of water in there before we even got out.
We were like, we have to go. So we had to climb down 14 floors to get to safety.”
At first, McKenzie said she wasn’t being believed. The front desk told her the sprinklers had been triggered, but she pushed back hard on that explanation.
“It’s Niagara Falls,” McKenzie said. “That ain’t no sprinkler, girl.
Like something bad just happened. Then we’re like, where are our movers?
The movers are stuck on the elevators because the lightning has struck. The elevators are broken.
They can’t get down. So the fire department comes.
Like, what is going on? So then hours later, the electricians come.
They’re like trying to fix everything.
“They turn off the sirens and all that,” McKenzie added. “And they say, you guys, after everyone was denying that I heard what I heard, why did the electrician say, yeah, you got struck by lightning and there’s a one in 400 million chance of a unit getting struck the way this unit got struck.”
Fortunately, no one appears to have been hurt.
It was a rough introduction to Philadelphia for the Caldwell-Popes, and now the focus shifts to what comes next for Kentavious on the floor. The 33-year-old spent the 2025-26 season with the rebuilding Memphis Grizzlies and posted 8.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.8 steals and 0.2 blocks per game.
He picked up his $21.6 million player option for 2026-27 this offseason, but a return to Memphis was never really the story. The only question was when he’d be moved. The Grizzlies eventually agreed to a contract buyout with Caldwell-Pope, clearing the way for him to join the 76ers on a one-year, $3.9 million deal.
Now he’s back alongside his Los Angeles Lakers teammate LeBron James in Philadelphia, with both hoping to chase another title after their 2020 run.
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