Rob Pelinka is not asking for permission. Just minutes after landing Walker Kessler in a trade with the Utah Jazz, the Los Angeles Lakers turned around and invested $131 million in free agency.
That is a full commitment to competing right now. The Lakers are not tanking. They are not sitting on cap flexibility for a rainy day. They are pushing chips to the middle of the table for a shot at contending in a wide-open West.
The Kessler acquisition was the anchor move. He immediately gives the Lakers a real rim protector, which they have needed for years. He is young. He is on a rookie-scale contract that is about to expire, which is a factor. But for now, the Lakers have an actual center rotation.
Then came the spending. $131 million spread across multiple signings shows that the Lakers front office had a plan built for the moment LeBron James decided to leave. They pivoted to a new roster construction philosophy fast, and they clearly had these players lined up as backups to the “LeBron stays” outcome.
Luka Doncic is the whole reason this makes sense. If you have Luka on your roster, you build for immediate winning. Nothing else makes sense. He is 27 years old and in his prime. Every year you do not maximize the roster around him is a year wasted.
Kessler as the rim runner. Doncic as the primary creator. New signings filling out the wing rotation. The Lakers are going to be a completely different team than they were with LeBron.
Are they title contenders? That is the question. Denver still has Jokic. OKC is still deep and dangerous. San Antonio just added Tobias Harris around Wemby. The West is loaded. But the Lakers, at least, are going to be in the mix. That is a huge step up from where they looked to be just a couple of days ago.
Ownership is spending. That is a real thing to note. The luxury tax bill on this roster is going to be brutal. The Lakers do not care. They believe they have the market and the star to justify it, and they are betting on that.
The rest of the offseason is now about filling out the depth. Who gets the last roster spots? Who takes the veteran minimums? Is there another trade coming to reshape the wing rotation? All of that is on the table.
Rob Pelinka has taken a lot of criticism during his time running the Lakers. This week is his best work. Landing Kessler, spending $131 million, and reorienting the roster around Luka is exactly what the moment called for. Now he has to hope it all works.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
