Rob Pelinka Discussion: He's Scrambling

Not surprised honestly. Rob is average at best to me and thus just reinforces the thought that the front office is more concerned about going with guys they know than handing the keys to the best and brightest. just not the guy I’d pick to run the league’s premier franchise.

Although I wasn’t a huge Vogel guy, I think it’s a shame he’s the only person who paid any price for the terrible roster we had last season.

I’d not so quietly hoped we’d do the same thing with the front office that we did with coaching. I think Ham is the right guy and I suppose we were fortunate he had spent some time with the organization in the past.

Maybe there is some guy out there who used to work here that we can get in the GM spot in 2026. We will see. I don’t think Rob lasts long once LeBron and Klutch aren’t in the picture.

 

Svtzr did lay it out well so I am only going to add that I think the FO learned a valuable lesson with the Russ trade. Let GM's GM, coaches coach and players play. A little input is cool but players can't call the shots on deals like that. As much as last season sucked if they indeed learned that lesson it will have been worth it. I am one of the crazy ones that does support the Rob extension. Having the coach and GM linked to success is a good strategy. The roster does look guard heavy but we have picked up what talent was out there at good value. We are patiently in position for a trade of some kind for wings or an upgrade at center and still have guards. We have youth to develop despite all we had to give up for AD, which led to a title, and we are guarding our assets closely. Another thing that I like is that we are playing good basketball right now. With a healthy AD, Lebron this line up can compete with anyone. Players develop as the season goes on or we get the right trade all the sudden we are competing for a title. I am just having a hard time seeing the gloom and doom. We are not perfect by any means but neither is any other team. I watch Max, Austin, Pip, Wenyen and Cole play I get pretty excited. Lebron looks in mid-season form and ready to shut some mouths. Mine included...lol.

 

I’m interested in developing continuity across the board.

I don’t think Rob has been outstanding but he has been fine to good. But maybe he continues to develop and sticks with us for 5-10 years.

I hope our scouting staff do because they’re some of the best in class.

I hope Ham solidifies himself this season and has a long run here too!

 

Let's put aside the merits of his extension for a second. I want to point out the ineptitude of Jeanie and Kurt for a moment and how unqualified are to hold their positions.



Does it make sense to wait until now to announce this?! Ham was officially signed 6/3. ESPN and The Athletic both say that Rob's deal was done before/around the same time. You go through the entire off-season and wait over four months to make this known to the world?! One of the big hurdles Rob had to encounter in trade negotiations this summer was every team trying to f*** him over because they knew he was desperate and GM'ing for his job. If they announced this when it was agreed upon, you avoid that entirely. OR if you're too dumb to realize that's going to be a thing then as soon as you get wind of it being a thing, either from Rob or the media, then you announce the extension right then and there. Waiting until pre-season was underway is awful awareness.

 

you got me on the timing. i have no idea why you don't just announce it like any other agreement.

but i'm guessing those negotiating with rob knew he wasn't on the hot seat. i know we think we know everything bc of shams/woj, but they only know what the FOs want them to know.

 

Yep.

I wish he had been more aligned with LBJ's window instead of Ham.

 

That could be possible, but I'm not so sure. We're a tight lipped group that trusts no one and doesn't exactly have a lot of friends across the league. When and where does that come up? Rob brings it up in negotiations? "Trust me guys I swear they extended me months ago." That's a bad look. Jeanie during the owner meetings? Stands up at the board of governors meeting, "I have an announcement...first, I want to apologize for my drunk tweet the other night. Second, I extended Rob. [Whispers fill the room] I know, I know. But I have a good feeling about him."

Maybe a handful knew, MJ (business partner) and a few other teams that we're friendly with. Maybe. But if others knew this, then it gets out. Nets didn't know. Marks is very close to Woj and that would've come out during our Kyrie courtship. And if it was known, why the leaks of other teams using Rob's ticking clock as leverage? Based on their track record of not being good at their jobs, I think it's much more likely that once again Jeanie and Kurt weren't good at their jobs.

 

Right. Plus I think Ham will be a good recruiter.
The lack of enthusiasm from most people is definitely understood.

But all is not lost. Still chances for Rob to prove himself.

 

Right. I kind of felt like everything was going to expire at the same time and we could overhaul everything around Ham at that point.

But that can still happen. We know how little sports contracts are really worth. Lol

 

Out of curiosity, what makes Jeanie bad at her job?

The only thing I have against her is a bit of nepotism to ex lakers (she’ll say loyalty) and the fact we can’t spend tens of millions into the luxury tax?

 

Yeah. I do think teams thought Rob was on the hot seat. Maybe this helps? We will see soon enough.

 

I think we pretty much all agreed that Magic sucked. That was just a horrible experience.

Nevertheless, what I could say is: was Rob at LBJ's at midnight with Magic attempting to convince LeBron to sign with us.

And all Rob has done ever since then is pander to Klutch? And AD was handed to us on a silver platter?

Or if you're a business owner, do you actually think Rob is the best basketball mind you could have hired?

The Dodgers went out and got Friedman. That's what we need: our Andrew Friedman. The Dodgers fans/baseball fans know who that is, right?

We could have had our Darvin Ham years ago and been running basketball concepts this millennium years ago.

Whatever. I'm done here. I'm excited about the game tonight.

 

Agreed on all points.

 

so again rob gets credit for russ because it was on his watch, but not for lebron, which was also on his watch. feel like it's cherry picking.

btw, i don't think magic's visit was the reason lebron came to the lakers. nor do i think it was rob. though i imagine rob had some things to say about how he would work with klutch that were pretty persuasive (and ironically, QUITE upsetting to our fanbase).

these people know each other. don't you know the general contractual situations of people you work with? i do. it doesn't take announcements. it takes one or two people knowing, then everyone does.

as for the leaks--do we know they came from the other teams? a lot of stuff in the press is the author's opinion, often carefully phrased so that a) it sounds like a fact and b) upon further inspection can be defended as innocent conjecture.

in short, i don't think people not knowing about rob's contract situation affected anything this summer. people were just trying to screw us, and it didn't work.

 

The handling of this is weird. It's almost as obscure as Vogel's extension.

 

and to be clear: i'm not saying it isn't weird that it wasn't announced a timely fashion. i just don't think it impacted things other than fan/media musings.

sort of like how leaks of which players were involved in what don't fool opposing gms, who are on the phone with each other weekly, if you believe them. rather, that's for fan/media relations first and foremost.

real posturing was trading THT for beverley to signal to anyone with an expiring guy that they might deal for russ that we might just take him for free in the summer.

 

The most important lesson she SHOULD have learned from her Father is that you hire the best and brightest (GM, Coach, rest of FO people who have a say) and get out the way.
For me, this is 90% of her job. If she succeeds at this at fails at every other aspect, she still succeeds.
She was EXTREMELY lucky that LeBronze chose to make LA the new center of his business operations based on all of his other businesses. Let’s be real, he didn’t choose the Lakers because we were such a well run organization at the time, or even had anything close to the talent to win. We couldn’t even get sit downs with the top Free Agents. It eventually worked out because of his relationship with AD. None of this was because of Jeanie, or the Rambii or even Magic.
Los Angeles was the best place for him to promote his world wide brand and the timing was right.
From all the talk, our FO seems to have settled on the right coach, but time will tell.
At least we can take comfort in knowing we have an intelligent Scouting Department who will continue to make us proud.

 

Great recap.
I’m just going to argue this point: Yes, Kuz and KCP both had a bad playoff series before being traded but you always have to take the good with the bad when dealing with role players.
They were key rotational pieces in the Bubble and fit perfectly with LeBronze and AD. They proved themselves on the biggest stage and became Champions- something the guy they were traded for will never become.
Also, if the injury excuse will be used for every other issue within the Laker organization, even down to how poorly the restrooms are kept, then you have to include it with the “flame out” of Kuz and KCP because AD and LeBronze were in and out of the rotation then.

 

yeah, i just want to know how much misuse of small assets has been rob-driven. we have pretty solid evidence that a series of VERY bad on-the-margins moves had magic's fingerprints all over them. since then, what is it? adding stan to the THT trade?

i don't know; i'm on team "our ownership group isn't built to run the franchise their father built" over "we just need a different semi-empowered general manager".