Los Angeles Lakers: The 3 best free agency moves Rob Pelinka has made

2. Making sure Talen Horton-Tucker did not walk

Talen Horton-Tucker was a restricted free agent heading into the offseason and after the team let Alex Caruso walked nothing was guaranteed with Talen Horton-Tucker. The threat of a team offering him a poison-pill offer sheet loomed and if that happened, the Lakers were less likely to match the deal.

That ultimately did not happen as the Lakers were able to come to terms on a three-year contract agreement with the 20-year-old. This is huge for the Lakers for multiple reasons.

First, the Lakers do not have much youth on the team and this is the one young asset that the team still has. This can be important for two reasons. THT can either develop into an extremely important player for a title team, which is possible considering his skill set or size, or could develop into quite the trade asset if needed.

They are not going to trade him any time soon or even this season, but in a year and a half or two years, they will have the possibility to at least include him in a trade for something bigger. That is why re-signing Kyle Kuzma last offseason was so smart as well.

This is also important for the team as they refused to trade him for Kyle Lowry at the trade deadline. Losing THT in free agency would have been a massive blow to the team after not trading him a few months prior.

It is not like he was going to make or break last season’s title run and the logistics of the Lakers losing him for nothing when they could have traded him would have been ugly.

But they weren’t and that is all that matters.