Lakers’ Timberwolves disaster puts pressure on Rob Pelinka to fix roster’s biggest flaws

Well, the Los Angeles Lakers’ season is now officially over. 50 wins, poof. JJ Redick’s well-earned goodwill, gone. Rob Pelinka’s victorious post-Luka Doncic trade tour has been postponed until further notice. LeBron James is once again pondering his future, now for the seventh time. The Minnesota Timberwolves unceremoniously squashed the season in five games, and now the organization finds itself punch-drunk, heading into an offseason with equal measures of pressure and questions.

Losing in that fashion was about as humbling an experience as you’ll find in sports. There are no injury excuses. No player was missing; you cannot judge the Lakers fully without them. This was utter domination — an ass-kicking of epic proportions that should shake the Lakers right down to the foundation.

Question now becomes: Will it? The Lakers clearly need multiple centers Redick will hopefully trust more than he did Jaxson Hayes. Low bar, sure, but still. They need more perimeter defense that also isn’t a liability on offense. They need to ask themselves some tough questions about the Doncic, James, Austin Reaves trio.

When it appeared as if James and Anthony Davis couldn’t get past the Denver Nuggets, Pelinka and the front office closed up shop and appeared ready to sit idly as that era came to a close. This was as thorough a beating as Denver gave to L.A., so will Pelinka consider this a lost cause, too?

Inclinations as of right now are, that, no, the Lakers do not consider building around Doncic and James a fruitless endeavor and will be active this summer. But as this series showed, they have their work cut out for them and aren’t blessed with a ton of time to improve pretty drastically.

Internal improvement/investment

Before we get to the personnel decisions you’re probably here for, it should be noted that the Lakers as an organization still have a ways to go compared to some of the teams it competes against. This is still one of the thinnest front offices in the league — if not the thinnest overall. They desperately need to add to (read: employ a) the NBA scouting department. Given their shooting woes, it also makes sense to add a shooting coach.

Most importantly, though, the Lakers need to surround Redick with some assistant coaching upgrades.

As an organization, the Lakers still don’t have the best reputation in coaching circles. League sources stress L.A. pays assistant coaches well below market value, and that isn’t even considering the cost of living in L.A. When they hired Redick after firing Frank Vogel and Darvin Ham in such short order, many assistant coaches balked at joining the staff because it wasn’t clear Redick (then seen as a James hire) wouldn’t get his walking papers just as quickly as his predecessors.

If the Lakers show more of a willingness to pay up, hopefully they can attract some assistants who could, say, I don’t know, talk Redick out of something as insane as not making any subs for an entire half of a playoff game. Whether it’s that, an offensive tactician or any other kind of upgrade, the Lakers can’t return this same group of coaches next season.

Speaking of JJ Redick

Make no mistake, Redick had a fantastic rookie regular season, full stop. Yes, this series was pretty abysmal, but the regular season showed he has some of the tools necessary to be a very good coach. Still, that series happened and it became abundantly clear the moment got to him and he made a series of brutal decisions that were actively detrimental for the Lakers’ chances.

He also bristled all season at anyone questioning some of his decisions or processes, which is just part of the job and isn’t going anywhere. Making matters worse, it felt as if his decisions in this series might be responses to said criticism, which exhibits an inability to close off outside noise. Reggie Miller even noted during the broadcast Wednesday how on edge Redick was before the game, at a time when the team is looking to him for a calming presence.

Redick admitted after the series that he needs to get better and there’s no reason to believe he won’t put in the work. If the Lakers are going to maximize this brief Doncic-James window, he’ll have to.

Pelinka will have tools this summer

Not saying all these guys are going to be moved or are even really on the table, but, Rui Hachimura, Dorian Finney-Smith, Austin Reaves, Maxi Kleber, Gabe Vincent and Dalton Knecht all are on expiring contracts in one way or another. At his exit presser, Rob Pelinka predicted a busy offseason in terms of player movement and he’s well-equipped to participate in that market.

In terms of draft capital, the Lakers are only making a selection at 55 in the upcoming draft, with their first-round pick going to the Atlanta Hawks. They can’t trade the 2026 pick until draft night next year because of the Stepien Rule, and their ’27 pick is only top-four protected. It will likely head to the Utah Jazz. From there, they have their firsts in ’28 and ’29, but can’t trade until more is known about ’27. All of this is to say in terms of first-round draft capital, the Lakers can only move ’30, which is technically a pick swap with the Charlotte Hornets.

Long story short, they have one first-round pick (’31) and the number 55 pick in this year’s draft that they can trade this summer, plus swaps. This means if they’re going to add to the team via trade, they’ll likely need to consider using a player who helps them on the court right now — think Hachimura or Reaves. If the Lakers believe he’s still going to be in Redick’s doghouse next year, they could also include Knecht, who still holds value to some around the league.

The Lakers don’t have the insane asset cache that, say, the Oklahoma City Thunder do, but they should have enough between their expiring contracts, rotation players, and Knecht to check at least one of their boxes via trade.