Rob Pelinka has made a lot of mistakes with the Los Angeles Lakers. There is a reason why the Lakers went from winning the 2020 NBA Championship to being one of the worst teams in the entire league two years later.
Pelinka has made ill-advised moves to bring in players that he never should have — but even worse — has given up on players long before he actually should have. While no team can be perfect, the long list of players that Pelinka incorrectly gave up on is staggering.
Just to rub the salt in the wound of yet another bad season, we decided to take a trip down memory lane and look at five players that the team never should have given up on. And just for clarity’s sake, we are only including recent players (no bad moves from the 1990s) and are not including players that were part of a much bigger package.
For example, nobody from the Anthony Davis trade is included and as downright awful as the Westbrook trade is, the trio of players LA sent in that deal will also not be in the deal. They weren’t necessarily given up on, the front office just made a boneheaded trade.
Here are 5 players that the Lakers should have never given up on:
1. Alex Caruso
You cannot start this article with anyone else. Letting Alex Caruso walk is perhaps the worst move that Rob Pelinka has ever made and that is saying something. At least with the Westbrook trade, you could somewhat talk yourself into it and a lot of fans did. The Caruso decision made no sense at the time and still makes no sense now.
Caruso and LeBron James were the best two-man combination in terms of net rating in the entire league in the 2019-20 season. And the Lakers just let that walk for a cheap price because the multi-billion dollar sports franchise didn’t want to pay more on the tax.
Even worse is that the team signed Talen Horton-Tucker instead only to give up on him a year later and trade him for Patrick Beverley. Don’t get me wrong, I would have traded THT too, but the fact that they chose him and overpaid him instead of Caruso is sickening.
Was anyone else really going to pay THT $10 million? The Lakers probably could’ve re-signed him for $5 million. Just a downright awful decision and one that should haunt Pelinka in his dreams every night.