Less than a year after the Los Angeles Lakers inked general manager Rob Pelinka to a contract extension, one NBA source feels that Pelinka’s job will be in danger if the team doesn’t enjoy a certain level of success over the remainder of this season.
“Unless they catch fire in the second half of the year, unless they really come on and make a run in the playoffs, it’s got to be on life support, it is going to be tough to see how he survives,” the source said, per Heavy Sports. “If they’re in the play-in again this year, with LeBron James and Luka Doncic on your roster, it’s hard to make excuses at this point. Does he have the respect of the league? Does he have a clear vision? That’s the problem.”
Heavy Sports’ Sean Deveney noted that if new Lakers owner Mark Walter seeks to build out the front office, “many around the league” suspect there could be a change at general manager.
A crowning achievement of Pelinka’s tenure as the Lakers’ general manager is the role he played in assembling the 2020 championship team. Not only did he put together a trade to acquire star big man Anthony Davis, but in free agency, he signed several key role players who contributed to the team’s title run.
Pelinka assembled that roster so that the team had great defensive and offensive firepower, and Los Angeles cruised to a championship. However, his track record since he helped the Lakers win it all at the start of the decade has been shaky.
Since that championship, Los Angeles has made it past the first round of the playoffs just once, and the roster Pelinka has assembled now is flawed on the defensive end of the floor. It was clear leading up to the deadline that Los Angeles could have benefited from adding another staunch defender to the fold, yet the team had a relatively quiet deadline.
Pelinka’s trade for Doncic will never be forgotten, but if the comments from the source are any indication, this season could be Pelinka’s last with the Lakers if they once again don’t accomplish anything of real significance in the playoffs. Hopefully, the Lakers can still make a deep run even with their defensive woes behind their star-studded duo of Doncic and James.
A strong finish to the regular season would seemingly help the Lakers’ chances, and they just so happen to be playing solid basketball right now. They are winners of every one of their last three games played and can pick up their fourth victory in a row when they play the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday.