Los Angeles Lakers: Ranking Rob Pelinka’s offseasons with LA
By Jason Reed
4. 2017 offseason
Rob Pelinka’s first offseason with the Los Angeles Lakers helped lay the groundwork for the coming years of his tenure. While some may look at Lonzo Ball as proof that this offseason was a failure, it was a successful offseason for the Lakers.
Let’s start with the draft. The Lakers made three solid selections in the draft which is really hard to do. Teams are hard-pressed to find rotation players in the draft and the Lakers found three. Granted, that is easy with the second overall pick, but the Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma picks were great.
You can nitpick about how the Lakers didn’t pick Jayson Tatum but he probably would have been traded in the Anthony Davis deal anyway.
Regardless, this draft helped lay the foundation for both the Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook trade as Hart and Kuzma were included in those two deals.
It also helped lay the groundwork for the team to sign LeBron James. Pelinka made a move that was heavily ridiculed at the time and flipped D’Angelo Russell and Timofey Mozgov for Brook Lopez. This was a classic salary dump trade and without it, the team would not have been able to sign LeBron James.