Los Angeles Lakers forward Jake LaRavia is already justifying the hype as one of the biggest steals of the 2025 NBA offseason. Los Angeles signed LaRavia to a fully guaranteed two-year, $12 million contract, and he's already starting games and making two-way contributions.
In the process, LaRavia has continued the incredible trend of Rob Pelinka finding starting-caliber talent in the most unlikely of places.
LaRavia was a first-round draft pick in 2022, but he's now playing for his third team in four seasons. He appeared in just 70 games between his first two years in the NBA, was traded to the Sacramento Kings in 2024-25, and didn't even have the club option picked up on the fourth season of his rookie-scale deal.
Pelinka was happy to swoop in and sign LaRavia for next to nothing, thus rounding out the Lakers' rotation with a wing whose untapped potential provides optimism on both ends of the floor.
[LaRavia has been invaluable](https://lakeshowlife.com/jake-laravia-finally-message-lakers-contend), starting [twice in five appearances](https://lakeshowlife.com/lakers-stumble-into-positional-battle-they-desperately-need) and emerging as a reliable source of two-way value. He's twice scored in double figures, posted a matching two games with at least five assists, and is playing the competitive defense the Lakers desperately need along the wings.
With a 27-point eruption in his latest outing, LaRavia seems to be the next in a growing line of discarded players scouted and acquired by Pelinka.
Rob Pelinka finds unsung heroes when Lakers have no other options
-----------------------------------------------------------------
LaRavia went off for 27 points, eight rebounds, two assists, one block, and a steal on 10-of-11 shooting from the field and a 5-of-6 mark from beyond the arc on Oct. 29 against the Minnesota Timberwolves. It was his best performance as a Laker to date, as he effectively went shot-for-shot with Timberwolves standout Jaden McDaniels.
Adept at creating for others and knocking down open jumpers, LaRavia is the versatile talent the Lakers have been searching for to complement the stars.
It's a development that has become somewhat commonplace during the Pelinka era. That process arguably began when the Lakers signed Alex Caruso as an undrafted free agent who played his entire first professional season in the G League.
Caruso would go on to help the Lakers win the 2020 NBA championship and has since added a second ring and two All-Defense nods to his résumé.
Los Angeles also signed rising star Austin Reaves as an undrafted free agent. He's now averaging 34.2 points per game in his fifth season with the Lakers, and seems to be well on his way to securing an All-Star nod that few, if any, predicted was even remotely possible.
Pelinka's tenure has also seen Los Angeles scout and sign the likes of Jay Huff and Scotty Pippen Jr., who have become productive NBA players in their own right.
Jake LaRavia is quietly becoming the exact player the Lakers have needed
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It'd be quite ambitious to expect LaRavia to go off as a scorer on a regular basis, let alone to become a player on the level of Caruso or Reaves. What he proved in 2024-25, however, was that he had the tools to be a quality two-way player with an adaptable skill set.
Across 66 appearances with the Grizzlies and Kings, LaRavia recorded averages of 12.2 points, 6.9 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.6 three-point field goals made per 36 minutes.
Los Angeles wisely bet on LaRavia's potential to translate that quiet breakthrough to something more tangible. They saw him compete with vigor on defense and identified an opportunity to address a need, as losing Dorian Finney-Smith meant proceeding without a point-of-attack defender.
Pelinka also identified an opportunity to add another capable playmaker to a rotation that's led by three star-caliber contributors in Luka Doncic, LeBron James, and Reaves, but still needed depth.
It's perhaps the most fascinating testament yet to Pelinka's ability to find quality, low-cost talent when there's hardly any cap space available to him. Doncic and James are making top dollar, Reaves is about to secure a massive new deal of his own, and there are seven Lakers in total making upward of $11 million per season.
Even with no logical way out of his current predicament, Pelinka has found the impossible path to bringing in meaningful talent for next to no cost—yet again.