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There are a few words that come to mind about Rob Pelinka, “being smart” is not on my list this season
You know your season is not going well when you are one spot ahead of the Houston Rockets- a team with the worst record for two years running – 13 games into the season. That’s where the Los Angles Lakers currently find themselves in the Western Conference, 3-10 and the 14th seed almost a month into the season. So, when Howard Beck of The Crossover NBA Show recalled a recent conversation with a Western Conference executive about Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, it may have you scratching your head.
So, that’s the logic that the Western Conference exec was laying out to me, and he said this: ‘Whatever you want to say about Pelinka, he’s being smart, he’s taking his time.’
To summarize the conversation, the executive believes that Wizards’ Bradley Beal, who just signed a massive extension to stay in Washington this past off-season, could be in play for the Lakers. That huge deal was a five-year 251 million dollar extension. Even if this was why Pelinka is “taking his time,” there is no guarantee this deal could be made.
The Lakers are in cap hell, with three players taking up over 124 million of their cap. They can’t trade LeBron James even if they want to, so that leaves Anthony Davis or Russell Westbrook, and trading Davis in a Beal trade does not make the Lakers a better team. So that leaves Westbrook having to either go back to the Wizards, the team he was traded from, to the Lakers in the first place, or they would have to get a third team involved. Seems unlikely to me.
Pelinka may not be in a rush to bring in help, but a certain King may not be so patient. According to Bleacher Report’s Chris Haynes, James “does not want to waste a season of his high-level playing days in hopes of incoming reinforcements for the 2023-24 campaign”.
The Lakers have been linked to Indiana Pacers Buddy Hield and Myles Turner for months, but it seems Pelinka is not high on the idea of trading away future first-round picks in 2027 and 2029 for the two Pacers. For many people, including myself, this doesn’t make much sense. The Lakers will not win consistently when players like Austin Reaves, Lonnie Walker IV, and Troy Brown Jr. are playing significant minutes. Even with Westbrook playing better since coming off the bench, the Lakers’ roster is thin at best outside of Davis and James.
As we have seen in the latest Nike commercials, even LeBron James can’t outrun father time as the injuries to James have begun to pile up. He is currently out after sustaining a left adductor sprain during the team’s game against the LA Clippers on November 10. But, of course, I haven’t even mentioned Davis, who we all know is a pre-game warmup away from being on the injured list for the next several weeks.
When you have an all-time great player like LeBron on your team who is coming toward the end of his prime, “being smart” because you are taking your time isn’t exactly the flex the anonymous Western Conference executive thinks it is. Instead, the smart thing would be to take advantage of having two of the top 15 players in the league on your roster while you can.
