Ever since the Los Angeles Lakers hired Rob Pelinka to run their front office in 2017, he has never been popular among the team's fans. Among the questionable and bad moves he has made that have hurt his reputation was his disastrous 2021 trade for Russell Westbrook, which arguably set the franchise back several years.
Several months ago, Mark Walter, who has owned the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2012 and remade them into Major League Baseball's most dominant franchise since, purchased a majority share of the Lakers. Many have wondered if that means major changes are coming to the Lakers' front office, especially since Walter eventually brought new people into the Dodgers' front office who eventually turned that team around.
According to one source in the NBA, Pelinka's job will be in serious jeopardy unless Los Angeles makes a serious run in this spring's playoffs, per Sean Deveney of Heavy Sports.
“Unless they catch fire in the second half of the year, unless they really come on and make a run in the playoffs, it’s got to be on life support, it is going to be tough to see how he survives,” one NBA source said. “If they’re in the play-in again this year, with LeBron James and Luka Doncic on your roster, it’s hard to make excuses at this point. Does he have the respect of the league? Does he have a clear vision? That’s the problem.”
Dan Woike of The Athletic wrote just days ago that the Lakers are expected to hire multiple people for front office roles this summer and to model their front office after that of the two-time reigning World Series champion Dodgers.
Ever since winning the NBA championship in 2020, L.A. has advanced past the first round of the playoffs just once and has gone through the play-in tournament three times in the last five seasons. It also missed the play-in tournament during the 2021-22 campaign, which was the season they brought in Westbrook and teamed him up with James and Anthony Davis.
After getting demolished by the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, the Lakers have a 32-21 record and are in fifth place in the Western Conference. They have dealt with a string of injuries to key players this season, including James, Doncic and Austin Reaves, and they are certainly a good team that should make the playoffs. But virtually no one believes they're a championship-caliber team, and being merely good just isn't good enough when a team has two of the greatest talents in basketball history on its roster.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Source: Rob Pelinka could lose GM job if Lakers don't make playoff run