Lakers News: Team President Rob Pelinka Agrees To Contract Extension With L.A.
Los Angeles Lakers team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka is set to linger in the team's front office at least through 2026 season.
Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports that the Lakers have come to an agreement with Pelinka on a multi-year contract extension. This will align the timeline of Kobe Bryant's former agent with the contract length of new head coach Darvin Ham, who signed a four-year deal with L.A. earlier this summer. Financial terms of the arrangement have not been disclosed.
Haynes notes that Pelinka was first hired in 2017 to work as the team's GM under team president Magic Johnson. The Hall of Fame point guard vacated the gig in spectacular fashion during a Lakers game near the end of the 2019 season, making Pelinka the de facto lead decision-maker in the Los Angeles front office. He was officially promoted to team vice president in 2020.
Pelinka has already built a championship team. The 2019-20 Lakers, fronted by All-NBA forwards LeBron James (who was recruited to sign in L.A. by Johnson and Pelinka) and Anthony Davis (for whom Pelinka surrendered a boatload of draft picks and pick swaps in 2019), hung the team's 17th banner, besting Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat in a six-game NBA Finals series.
As Haynes relays, James and Davis both inked extensions with the Lakers following their title with the club. James re-upped for an additional extension this summer.
After L.A. won its 2020 title under first-year head coach Frank Vogel, the team revamped its role players slightly (most notably replacing Rajon Rondo with Dennis Schroder and swapping out JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard for Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell) to defend its crown during the 2020-21 season. One of the shortest season-to-season turnarounds ever may have thrown a wrench in the team's best-laid plans. Long-term injuries to Davis and James sank the team into the seventh seed with a 42-30 record, and AD would get hurt again during the club's first-round Western Conference playoff matchup against Chris Paul, Devin Booker, and the rest of the upstart Phoenix Suns.
During the 2021 offseason, Pelinka made the biggest misstep of his tenure thus far, trading a first-round pick and role players Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma (plus Harrell, who had disappointed during his one L.A. season) to the Washington Wizards in exchange for ex-superstar point guard Russell Westbrook. Pelinka compounded the problem by surrounded his new Big Three with a bunch of over-the-hill veterans on minimum deals, many of whom looked so spent athletically that they remain without a contract heading into the 2022-23 season. That team finished with a miserable 33-49 record and missed the postseason. Even more long-term injuries to Davis and James sure didn't help, but even if healthy, that team would have struggled to survive the play-in tournament.
This year, Pelinka decided to replace Vogel with Ham, and prioritized youth and athletic upside over veteran savvy and shooting. The team as currently comprised could use more long-range help along the perimeter, and more defense basically everywhere, but it still looks a bit more solid on paper than last year's model.
One would assume that Pelinka remains actively engaged in pursuit of a Russell Westbrook trade. Most recently, it was leaked that the Lakers had looked to flip him to the Indiana Pacers for Myles Turner and Buddy Hield, but couldn't come to a consensus in their own locker room about what level of draft equity they were comfortable surrendering. Speculation abounds that L.A. may be waiting for its next aggrieved star instead of settling for depth, even if in this case that depth would be pretty helpful. Given the events of the previous week, could suddenly-embattled Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green be on the table now?
