Just days before the Lakers’ media day, Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick held a separate press conference and spoke with reporters from several media organizations about the team’s upcoming season.
During the press conference, Pelinka and Redick were asked about the shift in strategy over the past few seasons, as the team has finally seen a summer when it handed out multiple long-term contracts instead of two-year contracts to veterans.
Redick pointed out that the pressure of constantly competing for championships has left the franchise with limited cap space to make significant roster moves over the past several seasons.
“I don’t have much to add other than, you know, if you look at the teams that we’re wanting to go shoulder-to-shoulder with, the Thunder and the Spurs maybe in the West. Those teams went through dry spells where they lost and had to lose many seasons to get high picks, and we just don’t have the luxury of that here,” Rob Pelinka explained.
“Again, the expectations are every year: win, get in the playoffs, make a run. And so, we feel like we’ve been able to do that. As I started, since I’ve been in a leadership position here, we’ve been a playoff team, and we have to continue to be that,” he added.
“This was just an opportunity this summer with the space to get guys on multi-year deals. JJ and I feel really confident that there is continuity in this group, especially with our sort of big three of Austin, Luka, and Walker, and how those guys fit together, and then getting the role players around them.”
Some could say this is a shot at the Thunder and the Spurs for not succumbing to the pressure of competing for a championship for several years before they struck gold with their high-value draft picks and trades. Meanwhile, the Lakers’ assets were consistently devalued because they were apparently always contending for a championship.
In essence, Pelinka means the Lakers, as the league’s most storied franchise, have much more pressure to compete for championships every year. Hence, they were forced to make risky win-now moves instead of building a long-term core.
What Pelinka didn’t say, but seemed to imply, is that this resulted from changing the face of the franchise from LeBron James to Luka Doncic. When Pelinka joined the Lakers in 2017, he had a similar luxury of cap space, which allowed him to sign James in the summer of 2018.
And almost immediately, the franchise was forced to trade its core depth for a win-now piece: Anthony Davis. They surrounded James and Davis with the type of veterans they needed to compete for a championship.
But when it became evident that they needed to plan for a post-LeBron James era, the Luka Doncic option presented itself. Since James was in the latter stages of his career and 33 years old when he joined the team, the franchise was likely poised to match his timeline and give up assets to acquire win-now, experienced players.
But with a young player like 25-year-old Luka Doncic (when he joined the Lakers) as the franchise cornerstone, their timelines shifted completely. Now the Lakers can envision competing consistently over a few seasons after building a team properly instead of making risky trades.
Additionally, LeBron James’s exit has left the Lakers with a tremendous amount of cap space, which allowed them to sign Walker Kessler. So I believe it wasn’t just the pressure of constantly competing, but LeBron James no longer being the franchise player, that has led to this shift in approach.
The Lakers have only one unprotected first-round pick left in their war chest (2032) after trading for Walker Kessler. So, once again, all their eggs are in one basket, and their hands are tied when it comes to making major moves in the near future.
But it will be interesting to see whether they truly trust this core for the long term or succumb to the pressure of constantly contending for a championship and lose patience.
