JJ Redick & Rob Pelinka Valuing Continuity Moving Forward

The offseason represented a significant change for the Los Angeles Lakers brass. In the past, Rob Pelinka has valued flexibility and optionality with the roster. This offseason, however, he handed out four-year contracts to Austin Reaves, Quentin Grimes, Walker Kessler and Sandro Mamukelashvili to promote continuity heading into this new era.

Building around Luka Doncic is of utmost importance, but having a solidified core that can grow around him may be just as important. Pelinka shared that sentiment when discussing why he handed out more long-term contracts to try to build that continuity.

“Yeah, I think we feel like this era is going to be an era of more continuity, and having depth was important,” Pelinka said at his annual preseason press conference. “So if you look at what we went and accomplished this summer in terms of the free agents we added, Sandro and Q and Matisse and Ziaire and on and on, we felt like if we lined up a group of guys of like age and like career stage that we could give them a chance to grow and have continuity and get deeper. And so I think we’re confident about both of those things.”

Head coach JJ Redick chimed in as well, believing this new pivot in terms of team building promotes working towards a championship.

“Yeah, I do think part of the nature of having guys on shorter-term deals is if you don’t have cap space or you don’t have the full midpoint, you’re gonna be paying guys on exceptions, so biannual or taxpayer level or minimum contracts,” Redick said. “That’s how you get guys if you don’t have cap space. And when you’re constantly going for a championship, it’s rare that you have that. That’s just the nature of what these last six, seven years have been. This was an opportunity I think for us to move away from that; get guys we really like, get guys we really value, get guys that fit with what we’re trying to do on the court, and get guys with high character. Those are the guys I think you wanna win with, but you’re also OK losing with.’”

Pelinka noted that L.A. does not have the ability to tank for several years in order to get high draft picks and have organic growth with young players. So, signing players to longer deals is a healthy medium that allows the Lakers to contend in the postseason while having a solidified foundation around Doncic for years to come.

“I don’t have much to add other than if you look at the teams that we’re wanting to go shoulder-to-shoulder with, the Thunder and the Spurs maybe in the West, but those teams went through dry spells where they lost…They had to lose many seasons to get high picks and we just don’t have the luxury of that here,” Pelinka added.

“Again, the expectations are every year to win, get in the playoffs, make a run, and so we feel like we’ve been able to do that. As I’ve stated, since I’ve been here in the leadership position, we’ve been a playoff team and we have to continue to do that. And this was just an opportunity this summer with space to get guys on multi-year deals. JJ and I felt really confident that there is continuity in this group, especially with our sort of big three of Austin, Luka and Walker and how those guys fit together and then getting the role players around them.”

Time will tell how this new vision will pan out for Pelinka and Redick, but they definitely appear to be excited about this new-look team.

Rob Pelinka doesn’t rule out trade to get Lakers roster down to 15 players

One order of business remains for the Lakers as they have 16 guaranteed contracts, meaning that they need to cut somebody. When asked about the roster crunch, Rob Pelinka did not rule a potential consolidation trade to open up space.