Lakers News: Flippant Rob Pelinka Defends Trade Deadline Inaction
Your Los Angeles Lakers entered the NBA trade deadline ready to heavily upgrade the flawed roster that was put together over the summer. However, when the buzzer sounded, Los Angeles hadn't made any moves.
The team decided that a move for the sake of a move was worse than standing pat, which does make sense. The cost for any decent upgrade was too high, and the Lakers weren't going to outbid themselves.
They had been linked with multiple players across the league, but nothing ever came to fruition. The team will now go forward with the guys on the roster, hoping to have a turnaround much like last season when they reached the Western Conference Finals.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka acknowledged that the Lakers did look across the league for any potential trades, but nothing that was worth doing was available. Like always, he used an interesting metaphor to explain his line of thinking, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic.
“My job is to always look for ways to upgrade our roster,” Pelinka said. “But you can’t buy a house that’s not for sale. … The right move wasn’t there.”
Pelinka confirmed that the team wasn't fearful of trading away future assets, which was some speculation that many had regarding any trades.
“If the right move would’ve been there at the right price, we would’ve pulled the trigger,” Pelinka said. “We’re not fearful of using future assets for now. It’s just gotta be using future assets for the now in the right way and the right deal.”
The decision to stand pat isn't the worst idea from the Lakers, and now they will look at the buyout market. Los Angeles will have some solid options to work with, and they still may be able to bring in one or two upgrades to help the team down the line.
