The dust has settled and the 2025 NBA trade deadline is officially a memory Los Angeles Lakers fans will both cherish and quickly push to forget. Trade season yielded remarkable results, with Luka Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith joining the purple and gold.
Unfortunately, the Mark Williams trade fiasco has extinguished the Lakers' temporary championship dreams—and the blame falls directly on Rob Pelinka.
Los Angeles acquiring Doncic and Finney-Smith deserves every headline that's been produced. Doncic is one of the best players in the world, earning five All-NBA First Team nods and leading the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals by the age of 25.
Finney-Smith, meanwhile, has helped transform the Lakers' identity on defense, with the team ranking No. 5 in the NBA in defensive rating since Jan. 1.
Los Angeles seemed to acquire the missing piece when it completed a shocking trade for Williams. Unfortunately, the deal has since been rescinded due to a medical fiasco that Pelinka and the Lakers admittedly couldn't have foreseen.
For as true as that may be, the Lakers only found themselves in that position because of how long Pelinka waited to act on filling a void that existed the entire season—if not longer.
Lakers knew long before Mark Williams trade they needed a center
Clearly, the failed medical is something that Pelinka could only do so much to prepare for. Yes, he could've acknowledged Williams' medical history, as the big man has missed 131 games over the past three seasons, missing no less than 29 in a single campaign.
The bigger issue, however, is that Williams was a last-ditch effort to acquire NBA-caliber depth at a position that could've at least been respectable had Pelinka acted sooner.
Los Angeles was right to take a chance on Williams, whose talent is easy to see. Where they went wrong, however, was not finding a solid player at center in the months and years leading up to that last-minute trade, thus placing the fate of their season in the hands of a 23-year-old player with an extensive injury history.
Had Pelinka simply honored the years-long trade requests provided by Anthony Davis, the Lakers could've entered the trade deadline with a solid center in tow.
Instead, Williams is back in Charlotte and Los Angeles is down to Jaxson Hayes, Alex Len, and G League talent. Hayes has looked the part of a serviceable backup, but not necessarily a starting-caliber player at this stage.
Len, meanwhile, is being thrown to the wolves as a potential impact player despite averaging fewer than 10 minutes per game in each of the past three seasons.
Perhaps the Williams trade would've still been attempted and failed, thus giving the Lakers a rush of joy and a lasting feeling of disappointment, regardless of what else Pelinka did. Had Los Angeles acted sooner on the need for depth at center, however, they could've avoided their current predicament.
Through complacency in the face of necessity, the Lakers have created a self-inflicted wound that could cost them a deep postseason run.