The Los Angeles Lakers have an extremely important offseason ahead of them and all eyes will be on President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka to make the right moves to improve this roster. With free agency, trades and the NBA Draft, there are many routes the Lakers can go to build a championship team around the trio of Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves.
Of course, with the NBA recently implementing a new system that introduced new penalties for teams over certain salary cap thresholds, it has taken the league some time to adjust and really get an idea of how to navigate everything. But now after some time has passed, Pelinka sees a big offseason ahead in terms of player movement around the league.
“I think anytime there’s a new system put into place, it’s gonna take some time to kinda figure out what the aftershocks of the new system are,” Pelinka said during Lakers exit interviews. “There was a lot of talk last year about the restrictions of the first apron and the second apron and there was people trying to forecast what the trade deadline might look like two months before the trade deadline came and then all of us witnessed it was, not only for the Lakers, but for the league in general a huge and historic trade deadline.
“So I think the lessons of the system are there’s still ways to transact and I think this offseason too there’s gonna be a lot of movement around the NBA, it just feels that way. There’s so many aggressive leaders of organizations that are expecting now, success. So I think there’ll be a lot of opportunities for us to look at, I really do. I’m excited about the offseason and what’ll come our way.”
The Lakers’ needs are pretty well known at this point. The team’s lack of size was exposed in the playoffs and bringing in a big man is undoubtedly at the top of Pelinka’s list and he has also spoken about wanting to improve the team’s perimeter defense as well.
But Pelinka makes a good point in that everyone now has a better handle on this new salary cap situation and know that there are ways to make moves. And if that’s the case, the offseason is set to be a very exciting one for the Lakers, and the NBA as a whole.
Lakers do not want to trade Austin Reaves this offseason
While the Lakers will certainly be scouring the market and exploring every potential way to improve the roster, one thing not to expect from Rob Pelinka is trading away Austin Reaves.
A recent report noted the Lakers do not want to deal Reaves this offseason and value him extremely highly as a cornerstone of this franchise. In all likelihood, it would take a deal for an extremely impactful, borderline star player for the Lakers to move Reaves this summer.
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