LOS ANGELES \u2013 Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka said the organization will mirror the back-to-back World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers when it comes to the structuring of its front office.<\/p>\n
The Lakers have what\u2019s regarded as one of the NBA\u2019s leanest front offices, with needs in scouting, analytics, biomechanics and other areas. The Lakers are expected to begin addressing those needs this offseason.<\/p>\n
Pelinka\u2019s comments came Saturday when he discussed the team\u2019s deadline acquisition of guard Luke Kennard for Gabe Vincent and a second-round pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe baseball system and the NBA system are totally different in terms of how you can build a roster and what you can do to spend. That said, I think just their draft process and sort of how they\u2019ve established their farm system is amazing. And I think there\u2019s best practices in that as we evolve and get better going forward in those areas,\u201d Pelinka said. \u201cAnd then, just the way they\u2019ve sort of built out their front office, how deep it is. There is no expense they\u2019ll spare in being the best sort of front office in the world. And you could just see that in the way they operate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelinka said he stayed in communication with Mark Walter, who finalized his majority purchase of the Lakers on Oct. 30, Jeanie Buss and Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. Friedman and Pelinka recently spoke together at an event at Dodger Stadium, the ties binding Walter\u2019s two premier Los Angeles franchises getting tighter.<\/p>\n
\u201cMark Walter establishes an incredible standard of excellence, and he has been really enjoyable to collaborate with. I think Jeanie (Buss) and I have had several amazing conversations with him and keep him informed on all the details. And so, the three of us are working really, really strongly and well together,\u201d Pelinka said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s also been great to have, you know, sort of outside allies and advocates looking at the Dodgers and the success they\u2019ve had and what they\u2019ve built over there, and being able to tap into a person like Andrew Friedman for best practices. He\u2019s so incredibly smart and has done such an amazing job bringing championships to the Dodgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, just to have like another head of another team that you can, whether it\u2019s a roster move, whether it\u2019s a staff move, just someone that you can talk to, has been an incredible resource. It\u2019s been tremendous working with Mark and everybody around him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelinka described the Lakers as \u201caggressive\u201d at the deadline despite making the lone deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked incredibly hard,\u201d he said. \u201cWe evaluated numerous things. To your point, I can\u2019t go into specific players or conversations with other GMs that would impede the trust of our business going forward. But we were super aggressive, had multiple conversations, had lots of them, got close on some things, but ended up making the move we made, and we feel good about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelinka said the Lakers will likely fill their 15th roster spot at some point, whether it be through a bought-out player or by converting a two-way contract to a standard deal. Pelinka also said Luka Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s hamstring injury, which kept him out of Saturday\u2019s game against the Golden State Warriors, wasn\u2019t a major one.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of his greatest qualities is when he has an injury or he\u2019s unavailable for a game, he is deeply upset. He just \u2014 he can\u2019t stand not playing basketball,\u201d Pelinka said. \u201cHe loves the game so much and wants to play every night. And that\u2019s an incredible quality. Just a player who\u2019s like fighting and clawing to play versus looking for a reason maybe not to. So, we commend Luka for that. In terms of this injury, the good news is it doesn\u2019t appear to be anything serious. It was a mild hamstring strain, and he is truly day-to-day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2013 Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka said the organization will mirror the back-to-back World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,16797,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-560775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-dodgers","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-dodgers","12":"tag-ladodgers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesdodgers","18":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116033472628761595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}