Lakers’ Rob Pelinka deserves some credit for recent surge

Lakers head of basketball operations Rob Pelinka wanted to build a championship roster around Luka Doncic. The Lakers are starting to make Pelinka look like he made all the right decisions.

They’ve now won nine in a row following Saturday’s 105-104 thriller of a road victory over the Magic. It came courtesy of a last-second three from Luke Kennard.

This was all part of Pelinka’s plan, wrote CBS Sports’ Jasmyn Wimbish.

“Doncic being just 26 gives the Lakers a far longer timeline to build a championship-contending team, but that doesn’t mean they can slow down and take their time,” Wimbish wrote. “Doncic told Lakers president Rob Pelinka and coach JJ Redick in May that he’s not interested in taking the slow approach in building a contender.”

One of the big keys, it appears, was finding another sharpshooter at the February trade deadline. That would be none other than Kennard, acquired from the Hawks.

“The Lakers are going to score. They have Luka, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves,” wrote Lake Show Life’s Tyler Watts. “Pelinka needed to find a lights-out shooter to open that bit of extra space for everyone else. Kennard has the second-best 3-point percentage in NBA history, and the Lakers got him for Gabe Vincent and a second-round draft pick. It was another magic act by Pelinka as he turned virtually nothing into a crucial piece the team desperately needed.

“If fans had heard all that two months ago, they wouldn’t have believed it. Rob Pelinka deserves a ton of credit. It was his relationship with Nico Harrison that brought Luka Doncic to Los Angeles. Now, the Kennard trade has lifted the Lakers even further. Fans thought Kennard’s defense would make him a non-factor, but they were wrong. Pelinka is doing it all with limited assets and savvy moves. Credit to him.”