Rob Pelinka Discussion: BBall Ops Pres + GM (AKA: Lucky Rob)

Just think about the number of rebounds in that scenario and the ball being under one hoop for pretty much the entire game. Likely get boring but for one game...lol.

 

So do we know that Klay doesn’t do these things?

I always wanted him here because of the obvious Laker ties and he just so happened to attend a private High School 10 minutes away from where I grew up.

 

I love Klay and saw some interviews with him. Different podcasts already went to his place. He seems really laid back and a super chill guy, who's not very vocal and just does his thing without bothering anyone. Doesn't strike me as that type of vet who will set the standard, more like being a cool vet to hang around with. Still has value, but it's a different type and a lesser fit in our current vet needs, imo

 

to be clear, i don't hate klay at all. if all other options fail, i'd move hardy/knecht for klay, for sure. i'm just not jazzed about it. he's more done than looney, imo.

 

I just don't want JJ to have any excuses not to play the young guys. I think the Loon going to surprise us with what he has left. Klay might as well.

 

This 100%

They need game speed and stress reps to learn

Can't learn from the bench

Pressure situations is where most of the mistakes come from

Getting familiar with that can iron out the nerves

 

This right here!!! EXACTLY!!! We need them ready by playoff time, not three years from now or never bc we moved too slow.

 

i'm posting a screenshot from hoopsmatic's real value rankings for the current Lakers roster.

The real value rankings project how much each player's real contract worth would be based off of last season's performance. It helps visualize whether each player is a value contract or a negative contract. For example, Luka Doncic makes $51,033,60 per season but his production on the court results in him having a real value ranking is $73,392,326. So he is a surplus of +$22.4 million.

I haven't seen anyone provide this criticism about Rob's roster construction yet, but it's becoming apparent that in this current CBA where the second apron is basically acting as a hard cap if teams like OKC have to trade valuable rotation pieces just to stay under it. Because of this, the way to succeed is to always try to have as many players who are able to produce and outperform their contract value.

In previous years, Austin Reaves was the best example of that. When he was making $13 mil/season but producing like a borderline allstar, he was worth close to $30 mil+/season to a team. Luka is still an example of this, if there were no salary cap he would be worth $73 mil and we get him for $51 mil.

If you take a look at the screenshot, it gets ugly quick for this lakers roster construction. Luka and Sexton are the only two surplus players, everyone else has negative value. Kessler at $30 mil is negative value but i do think alot has to do with the data being based on last year's performance, where he only played 5 games.

The roster inefficiency that we all know is there is what will sink this team, players like Vando/Knect/Hardy/Bronny that we know can't perform to the value of their contract eat up a chunk of your cap that should be used to competent players that can produce. Because of the second apron, it's why building a efficient roster is the game now. You need players on cheap contracts that overperform them. We don't have many of those and i'm concerned the Grimes/Mamu signings will fall into the bucket of the Vando/Knect/Hardy/Bronny inefficient contracts. Best case scenerio for Grimes/Mamu is they perform well enough to be worth the exact value of their contracts. It's unlikely they far exceed that, so you don't have that surplus to offset the bad contracts as well.

I don't think Pelinka has figured that out, i thought with the hiring of the rocket scientist as the analytics guy would prioritize this and that "moneyball" style roster construction is the way of the future, but it doesn't seem like it.

 

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to have this type of cold, rational conversation in this forum, as you get attacked almost immediately by the kumbaya positive vibes people

I've been saying since the day the news broke that Mamu and Grimes are bad contracts TODAY. Yes, the gamble may pay off, the players may improve and end up overperforming their contracts, but based on their careers so far, they haven't done anything to justify the numbers, years, and the POs.

But you make decisions with the information you have today, and handing out those contracts doesn't seem like a great decision.

Mamu in particular his stats playing the 4 are really not great, so essentially we're spending 13M/y on a backup big who was barely playable in his last playoff run.

Sexton I like his game, but I'd argue from a roster building standpoint, that money should have been channeled towards a starting 4.

Kessler has a rarer skillset, so I think that contract is probably the easiest to trade, if we need to, as long as he stays healthy.

Also like I pointed out a bunch of times, if some of these contracts don't work out, we'll probably have to give up assets to move the players, and we haven't even been able to move Vando when he's been out of the rotation for over a year.

So essentially this is a huge gamble, especially with Luka's contract up in two years.

 

well, i'd say we're not currently hemmed in by the second apron, and i'd also argue that contracts are bets about the future, not the past. the models are going to say that, for example, jrue holiday is worth more than quentin grimes, but i could easily see that going the other way. by the time the model catches up, you've gained your advantage.

anyway, our only bad contract is vando, imo. the only way i see mamu or grimes being like vando is if they get injured, which can happen to anyone. if anything, by betting younger, we're gaming this system. like, i'm sure the system is claiming lebron is worth a zillion dollars and on a vet min, but...if that groin goes out, it's zilch. and that groin has been going out on the regular for years now. i say this as the owner of a shaky groin (nosirron).

imo, we played the percentages correctly: lebron, rui, kennard, and smart all project as guys whose on-court value is going to torpedo, whereas grimes, sexton, mamu, and kessler could be reasonably projected to sustain or improve.

reaves got market value. nobody was signing him for his supposed 30m "real value", as det was prepared to offer more than we did. so it's moot. f*** off, nerdz.

edit: btw, okc's contracts are all going up whilst production most certainly isn't (SGA doesn't have another gear, and he's about to be paid, like 25% more). so maybe it's golden boy presti who simply doesn't grasp the analytics.

i'm kidding, but only that i think this is misuse of analytics.

 

Thanks for posting this. Really interesting discussion.

I personally had Reaves as a 35m player which isn't too far off the model. I did however have Grimes at the MLE and Mamu at the 10-15m range. Surprised they both were lower, especially Mamu at 5.7m - his impact on the offense will be considerable whereas I believe Grimes will be a pretty good two way starter and those go around 20m+.

Kessler being 11.8m is also surprising, does this take into consideration injuries? Is it a cumulative stat of games played + performance over those games? - that would explain a bit. I also find the rankings of Carr and Adou overly low, that's just the failings of the stat though. Carr could be a 10m real value this season and Adou could be above the minimum. I also think Ziaire and Thybulle are excellent value.

Will be cool to revisit this at times over the season.

 

1) when you buy a house do you pay what the house is worth today or what it may be worth in 5 or 10 years?

2) say this house you're buying is run-down and neglected, and you think you can improve it. Say the market value is 500k and you think it can be worth 1 million. Are you okay with paying very close to the million that you think the house will be worth once you renovate it?

I rest my case.

 

Great point.

I really like this analysis of outperformance of contracts because thats how team's should be building in this new CBA.

I guess just like in your case of the run down home, we should be looking for players like Grimes, Mamu and Kessler that are rated quite low, but have the potential to outperform their past value - same with rookies who are cost controlled.

Maybe Mamu and Reaves won't outperform their contracts, but I think Grimes has a shot if he is playing both sides of the ball, Kessler definitely does and the rookies obviously do. We could still come out quite a bit better than the analysis suggests currently.

 

I do think in that model Kessler was a $11 million value because they used last seasons stats and amount of games he played, which is why he’s low.


I’m not so worried about Kessler at $30 million. If he produces the same as what he did in the 2024-25 season, he would be worth the $30 million.

It really is the other moves that worries me. I agree, I don’t think Sexton should have been prioritized and a starting power forward would have been the way to go. I also think Grimes and Mamu are overpaid and best case scenario they perform to their contract levels, but it would be very surprising if they outperformed their contracts.

Even taking into consideration what I call the “contract efficiencies”, I think it’s on Rob to try to negotiate the value of each players contract to protect the franchise and I am not sure that he did a good job of that. By looking at how free agency played out, I feel confident in saying no other team was offering 4 years/$60 mil to Grimes and 4 years/$52 mil to Mamu.

I do believe that if Rob offered Grimes $9 mil season for 4 years ($36 mil contract) and gave the bi-annual exception to Mamu instead of Sexton, they both probably would have taken the deals. Just little things like that would have given the Lakers enough cap room to sign a guy like John Collins or even bring back Rui.

But now we do have holes in the roster because of those miscalculations, and the biggest risk is if either Grimes or Mamu don’t live up to their contracts for whatever reason, whether it be poor play or injuries, we have very little draft capital left to even move those guys. Rob’s previous track record of signing the supporting cast type players using the MLE has shown he’s not that good at identifying which players to prioritize. I’m talking about Kendrick Nunn, Gabe Vincent, Montrezz Harrell.

It makes life much easier if you can hit on your MLE level signings and continue to build off that, but history has shown that Rob’s playbook is if he misses in the MLE, he just sits and endures until the last year of their contract and then attaches 2nd round picks at the trade deadline for a rental player.

It’s not a good use of assets to do it this way.

 

You are having a hard time with a rational conversation? It seems like you are doing pretty well. I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Just a basketball forum.