3 Lakers Leaving Los Angeles in the New Year
By Cem Yolbulan
3. Rob Pelinka
None of this matters as long as GM Rob Pelinka stays in his role. Lakers fans can criticize the players and the coaching staff for their various shortcomings but the main problem for this organization is poor management. It obviously starts at the top with ownership and Jeanie Buss but since they are not selling the team any time soon, it's time to make a change in the lead decision maker.
Pelinka has been able to avoid blame in recent years due to the unfair scapegoating of Darvin Ham. His roster construction has arguably been the worst part of the Lakers during his tenure.
Since the 2020 championship, the Lakers have consistently failed to put a championship-caliber roster around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. If anything, they moved on from quality, playoff-level role players like Alex Caruso, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Dennis Schroder, and Kyle Kuzma and replaced them with questionable one-way players.
Once full of high-level role players, the Lakers now lack shooting, perimeter defense, frontcourt depth, and athleticism. The disastrous Russell Westbrook trade was the original sin, but failing to find cheap contributors or trade for impact players since then has been equally damaging.
Unless the Lakers make a miraculous deep postseason run, it's hard to see how one can justify keeping Rob Pelinka around. At some point, you will run out of other people to point fingers at, and that time may be coming for this front office.
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