Say what you want about the Los Angeles Lakers' offseason, but you can't claim that general manager Rob Pelinka hasn't been active. In a flurry of moves, Pelinka has transformed the Lakers' roster around Luka Doncic, even if he's still one impact move short of having pulled off a truly complete summer of roster-building.
When you look at each area of the Lakers' roster that Pelinka overhauled, there's stuff to praise and stuff to critique. In the frontcourt, the Lakers moved on from Deandre Ayton (yay!) and acquired Walker Kessler in a massive sign-and-trade with the Utah Jazz.
Some Lakers fans will tell you that Pelinka overpaid for Kessler and will regret it later. In other Lakers frontcourt news, Jaxson Hayes ended up on the Jazz, and LA replaced Hayes at backup center with the much less athletic Kevon Looney. Meh.
On the wing, the Lakers added Quentin Grimes and Ziaire Williams, but they haven't been able to secure the type of long, 6-foot-8 two-way demon that they've been meaning to (they're still trying on Jonathan Kuminga).
Is Grimes going to be the answer defensively on the wing? Pelinka better hope so. He gave Grimes a four-year, $60 million deal. On top of Kessler's four-year, $130 million contract, that's a whole lot of money funnelled into two players, neither of whom has proven to be wildly consistent contributors at the NBA level, for different reasons. Kessler has injury issues. Grimes is just a very hot-and-cold player, in general.
Did the Lakers just have an historically bad offseason, and we just don't know it yet?
If Grimes and Kessler end up stinking, fans will inevitably compare this offseason to the Lakers' failure of 2016, when they gave a combined $136 million to Luol Deng and Timofey Mozgov, then watched as that money went to waste in the post-Kobe Bryant era.
Bleacher Report recently ranked that Deng-Mozgov summer as the fourth-worst free agency mistake of the century across the NBA. Yikes. While that wasn't Pelinka at the helm, it's still fresh in Lakers fans' minds.
Just like in 2016, the Lakers of 2026 are looking to retool after the departure of a massive, generational star. This time around, though, LA has another generational star to carry the torch in Doncic.
This Pelinka front office deserves more credit than to be compared to the Lakers' brass of a decade ago, but that doesn't mean that Kessler, Grimes, and other moves that Pelinka made this summer will work out.
The problem is that they kind of have to. Pelinka has relinquished nearly all of his valuable assets to arrive at the current roster. This is the Lakers' team moving forward, for better or worse.
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