Rob Pelinka faced an immense amount of backlash during the first half of the 2022-23 regular-season for the historically poor start to the Los Angeles Lakers’ campaign.
Like his superstar player in LeBron James though, Pelinka made a historic 3-1-like comeback at the NBA trade deadline by acquiring D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Malik Beasley, Mo Bamba and Rui Hachimura.
The expectations of the new-look purple and gold were not super high amongst the Lakers faithful, and that seemed to have rang true for Russell, who replaced Russell Westbrook as the starting point guard for L.A.
Things came together quickly though and now the Lakers are in the Western Conference Finals after defeating the defending champion Golden State Warriors in six games in the second round.
Now that the Lakers have reached this point, Russell admitted that he was skeptical after the trades went down.
“I will tell you straight up, and Rob Pelinka will too, I did not expect this,” Russell said. “I would be lying if I told you all I did. Once we got out there, you could just tell guys liked each other and wanted to play for each other. Everybody wanted to win and get the job done. Looked up we had a chance. We ran with that.”
The ability to play your cards right and wait for the right opportunity takes skill that not many high-level executives have. For Pelinka, this was not his first rodeo, as he helped construct the 2020 Lakers championship team.
The Lakers 360-degree season flip was in large part because of Pelinka’s trades, and Russell believes that he did such a great job with the organization that he deserved to win Executive of the Year.
“He got snubbed for GM… that award he was supposed to win,” Russel said. “Honestly, the sacrifice he made and was supposed to make to kind of get the right group of guys. They came with that energy and selfishness. Nobody wanted anything, we just worked for it all. We had a tad bit of chemistry in there too, and made everything easier. Just being out there with guys I had a feel for. It just made all the pieces that was here already more comfortable being themselves. we had the right chemistry with guys, and it made easy to go out and play for each other.”
Pelinka certainly saved the season, and possibly the beginning of what looked like a dark hole for the Lakers if they did not make any moves at the deadline. Now, the Lakers are eight wins away from the 18th championship in franchise history.
Pelinka finishes 11th in Executive of the Year voting
The Lakers faithful seemed to be puzzled after Pelinka placed 11th in Executive of the Year voting. after taking a 13 seed to No. 7 and an appearance in the Western Conference Finals.
No matter what the voting criteria seemed to be, Pelinka deserved way more credit than given this year. The ultimate comeback he made should have earned him a way higher spot in the voting list, but it’s voted on by other executives and Pelinka’s reputation amongst his peers clearly still isn’t great.
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