Lakers News: Does Rob Pelinka Think He's L.A.'s Coach?
Los Angeles Lakers team vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka has been frequently derided for his bizarre roster construction choices this offseason. Though several of his new personnel additions this past summer (Lonnie Walker IV, Juan Toscano-Anderson, Troy Brown Jr., Patrick Beverley, even fringe rotation piece Matt Reeves) have looked pretty good for L.A. The big issue is a move he didn't do: trading Russell Westbrook for higher-level depth, although it seems like that could still be in play later this year.
With the exception of Beverley's $13 million deal, the money Pelinka and co. previously lavished on several quality role players to support stars Anthony Davis and LeBron James is now almost all concentrated on Westbrook, with everyone else inked to veteran's minimum deals or mid-level exception contracts. Though Walker has been pretty solid in an outsized role for Los Angeles (long-range shooting woes notwithstanding), the team's 2021 mid-level exception signing, Kendrick Nunn, is now on the outside of the rotation. Pelinka signed too many mediocre point guards, leaving promising new head coach Darvin Ham struggling to juggle everyone's minutes.
Point being, Pelinka has had a rough go of it, but let's see how he handles this Westbrook situation. Brodie looked totally transformed as an energy-changing sixth man last night during L.A.'s first victory of the young season, and though L.A. is paying $47.1 million for a player who's probably more of a mid-level exception signing himself, there's a chance the team survives somewhat until Pelinka can find a deal he digs.
All that said, footage from Spectrum SportsNet was unveiled recently that showed Pelinka trying to amp up the team's player with a motivational locker room speech, with Darvin Ham standing by.
The speech starts out as something of an endorsement of Darvin Ham's leadership ethos, which in a vacuum is fine, but is a bit strange coming from a guy who should be out scouting prospects somewhere:
"You know I think there's a lot of folks in this room, me included, that... have a chip on our shoulder. Lotta people on the outside talking noise, we don't pay attention to that, but I think to get to the end, and to accomplish what we want to accomplish, having that edge, having that chip on your shoulder, playing with that level of competitiveness, fire, is important to our squad, and to me really aligns with Darvin's leadership, that's what he's about."
Then the footage seems to jump ahead a bit, transitioning to a truly bonkers bit of business so hokey that this writer wonders if any actual coach would speak this way in 2022:
"When we spell words around here, we don't like the letter 'i' to be in the word. This is an 'us,' a 'we' team, and that togetherness part , that's why we take out an 'i.' And if we take ourselves out -- me included, coach included, everybody in this room -- and we make this a 'we' and an 'us' room, then the 'i' turns into that thing right there, and that's what everybody's chasing."
As Michael Jordan likes to say, there's "not an 'i' in 'team' but [there is] an 'i' in 'win.'"
