Breakout Nets role player is another colossal miss by Rob Pelinka, Lakers
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Lakers were coming off of the most disappointing season in franchise history and had to improve the team this summer in order to make sure that didn’t happen. While the team did not have a lot of financial flexibility, there were options to be pursued.
Thus far it is safe to say that the moves the team did make were not great ones. Los Angeles is off to a painfully slow start this season with a roster that is extremely guard-heavy, cannot shoot and has little to no wing depth.
Building a roster without a lot of resources is admittedly challenging and many have made excuses for the Lakers because of it. The argument for the Lakers having so many guards and not any wings was the fact that there “weren’t many options for LA to pursue”.
There definitely were options, Rob Pelinka just pursued the wrong ones. One option the Lakers certainly should have pursued is forward Yuta Watanabe, who made all the sense in the world in free agency. Instead, Watanabe signed a minimum deal with the Brooklyn Nets and has been lighting the world on fire this season.
https://twitter.com/BrooklynNets/status/1593473881351737344
One clip doesn’t tell the entire story. The six-nine forward is averaging 7.5 points and 2.9 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game. Watanabe’s most impressive stat is his three-point shooting, as he currently leads the entire league with a 55.6% three-point rate in 2.8 attempts per game. You can’t tell me the Lakers wouldn’t benefit greatly from that.
The Lakers missed on Yuta Watanabe in favor of doing Klutch a favor.
The sad reality of the situation is that Yuta Watanabe is not a Laker because Rob Pelinka, Jeanie Buss and the entire organization proved that Klutch Sports has far more influence on this organization than they say it does.
Instead of signing Watanabe, who was a wing with legitimate shooting potential and solid defense to fall back on, they signed Klutch Sports clients. What do Lonnie Walker IV, Troy Brown Jr. and Juan Toscano-Anderson all have in common? Ding ding ding. They are represented by Rich Paul and Klutch Sports.
Brown and Walker have been good, to be fair, but it isn’t a coincidence that they were the first players the Lakers brought in this offseason. Instead of scouting the entire market and finding a potential hidden gem like Watanabe, the Lakers quickly settled to do LeBron a favor.
Meanwhile, Toscano-Anderson is making 18.2% of his three-pointers this season and has been bad defensively. He ranks 318th out of 322 players (Kendrick Nunn is 322nd) in Box Plus/Minus with at least 100 minutes played. Watanabe ranks 46th.