Between the Hollywood spotlight, the glamorous NBA history behind them, and the legacy doors they can help open up, the Los Angeles Lakers have rarely had trouble attracting hoop world elites. Fitting those top-shelf players into a cohesive, contending-caliber puzzle hasn't always happened, though, most recently evidenced by their inability to get the Luka Doncic-LeBron James-Austin Reaves combo to click.
Maybe that appears a champagne problem to all the franchises who struggle to attract front-line talent, but it's a legitimate problem for the Purple and Gold. And it's one they just took a big step toward solving by hiring former Virginia coach Tony Bennett as NBA draft adviser to president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka.
"As we refine and build out our NBA draft and scouting process, we could think of no better basketball mind than Tony Bennett to have as a resource," Pelinka said in a statement. "Tony's track record of forming culture, with high-character, high-skill, and high-IQ players is revered and respected across all basketball circles."
It also just so happens to be a nagging need for the Lakers, and one that if handled correctly, could finally unlock this core's championship potential.
The Lakers need a cohesive identity, and Tony Bennett's hiring suggests they're finally trying to establish one.
While a surface-level scan of this roster shows three legitimate stars, a slightly deeper dive shows a jarring lack of cohesion and vision. It's almost as if this group wasn't entirely constructed using the best-player-available model without a single second of consideration given to fit.
And that's been particularly frustrating when the formula to win big with Doncic (or James, for that matter) seems pretty cemented and relatively simple. Give him a rim-running big man (a real Clint Capela type—wink!), a horde of disruptive defenders, and as many shooters as one can squeeze into the perimeter rotation, and you've probably just constructed a contender.
Yet, the Lakers have provided exactly none of those things.
Deandre Ayton has been a brutal big-man fit. The shooting needs go way beyond what deadline acquisition Luke Kennard can provide. The defense is, collectively, a disaster (24th in efficiency, per NBA.com).
It's like someone handed L.A. a blueprint for how to win big, but it just focused on finding the brightest colors in the box and blind-hoped they would scribble out something cohesive.
Bennett's arrival hopefully changes that. He's not taking over the front office, obviously, but his hiring does signal a willingness to build an actual identity around defense, determination, and a collective desire to chase the same goal—core principles that helped him once mold the Virginia Cavaliers into hardworking heavyweight contenders.
It's not a final step, but it's a potentially big step. And, frankly, an overdue one.