Rob Pelinka Admits He Consulted LeBron And Davis About Lakers Roster

LeBron James wasn’t directly involved in the signing of new players, but Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka consulted him about a few things.

Pelinka did a really good job completing the Lakers roster. He wasn’t able to get Kawhi Leonard, but he sure added Danny Green, DeMarcus Cousins, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Avery Bradley, Rajon Rondo, Quinn Cook, JaVale McGee and Jared Dudley to the roster.

In a conference call, Pelinka said that LeBron and Anthony Davis were consulted regarding the roster.

“I think the conversations we have with our players, we want to keep those private just because they are important,” Pelinka said. “But anytime as a general manager when you have superstars on your team, especially guys that have the basketball IQ and just the understanding of the game that Anthony Davis and LeBron have, of course, you are going to be tapping into them as partners.

“We view our relationships here with our star players here as partnerships. I know both Anthony and LeBron are excited about the 14 guys and how we are going to come together, and their input, both of their input, Anthony and LeBron, has been incredibly valuable to me.”

The Lakers had a terrible season, but Pelinka believes that they can learn a lot from the mistakes they made in 2018.

“I think the greatest teacher in life for all of us is experience,” Pelinka said. “And I think that to be great at anything, you have to learn from the past. I think we took a lot of what happened last year into account in kind of shaping this roster and shaping our goals for the season. The North Star for us was just we wanted to add more shooting. We wanted to have perimeter defenders, high-IQ players, guys with high character, and then a versatile lineup.

“… You always have to learn, and evolve and adapt as a leader, from the past,” Pelinka added. “For us, anything short of a championship is not success. So we have to learn from last season, because we didn’t win a championship. And a lot of that went into the construction of the roster this year.”