Memo to Mark Walter:
Check your swing.
Now that you’re the majority owner of the Lakers, everyone is expecting you to whack their two most prominent leaders in hopes of transforming the basketball team into your baseball team, but you should instead initially act in terms your Dodgers would understand.
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Take a pitch.
Keep Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick in their jobs … for now.
Agreed, this might be a tough call, and certainly there could be temptation to immediately can the two Lakers employees who most epitomize the incestuous decisions that have dragged the once-shining championship organization into dull mediocrity.
Read more: NBA free agency: What to expect from the Lakers and Clippers
Pelinka, the president of basketball operations and general manager, was hired eight years ago because he was the agent and confidant of Kobe Bryant.
Redick, the head coach, was hired last summer because he was LeBron James’ podcast bro.
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Neither man came to their current positions with strong qualifications. Both men were beneficiaries of a post-Jerry Buss culture in which daughter Jeanie would surround herself with friends and family.
It is a culture that led to outsized decision-making roles for the likes of Linda and Kurt Rambis. It is a culture that is diametrically opposed to the meritocracy that has made this town’s other glamour team so great.
Now that the Dodgers have basically swallowed the Lakers whole, it might be a foregone conclusion that Pelinka and Redick would be among the first to disappear.
Memo to Mark Walter:
Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, recently became a majority stakeholder in the Lakers. (Emma McIntyre / Getty Images)
Hold up rounding third.
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Both Pelinka and Redick have earned a chance to show their strengths in a new system in which there will certainly be increased scouting, advanced analytics and a new professionalism for an infrastructure that had been difficult for any official to succeed.
Ned Colletti was the Dodgers’ general manager when Walter’s group bought the team in the spring of 2012. He lasted two more seasons, Guggenheim Partners pouring money into the team and giving him every chance to succeed before firing him.
Pelinka deserves at least half that chance.
Don Mattingly was the manager when Walter bought the team. He lasted four more seasons, finally parting ways after the 2015 season.
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Redick deserves at least a portion of that leash.
Although both men have been viewed as overmatched both in this space and by NBA insiders across the landscape, each has done well enough to not be summarily beheaded the minute Walter walks through the door.
Start with Pelinka. You do know he has an NBA championship on his resume, right? While Alex Caruso dismissed the 2020 title as phony last week after he won another ring with Oklahoma City, that first one still counts, and Pelinka still deserves credit for overseeing it.
Read more: Magic Johnson: ‘Mark Walter is the right person’ to take over the Lakers
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Yes, Pelinka is the villain who ruined everything by letting Caruso walk while gutting the title team to acquire Russell Westbrook. But he’s also perhaps the only executive in NBA history to acquire three players the likes of LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis.
He had lots of help there — Magic Johnson recruited James, and James recruited Davis, and Nico Harrison handed him Doncic — but still, he was the final cog in making it happen.
Pelinka also engineered the splendid undrafted free agent signing that was Austin Reaves, which led to the Lakers finishing this season as the third seed in the West.
You don’t fire a decision-maker the same year his rebuilt team finishes third in basketball’s most competitive neighborhood. You don’t fire a decision-maker two years after his team reached the Western Conference finals. And you certainly don’t fire a decision-maker until you know what’s happening with his best employee.
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It seems clear that James is going to opt in to his $52.6 million contract this week and remain with the team — and son Bronny — for at least one more season. If that’s the case, then Pelinka should get the chance to add the rim protector he’s been seeking to maximize Doncic and give James one more opportunity at a ring.
However, if James unexpectedly turns down the money to seek better title opportunities elsewhere — not a bad decision for the Lakers, honestly — then the ensuing roster chaos will not be the right time to make a change at the top.
Either way, the situation is fluid enough that Pelinka should be allowed to see it through.
The same goes for Redick, who did an admirable job in his first regular season before melting down in the playoffs.
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Granted, some would consider his first-round series game management against the Minnesota Timberwolves a fireable offense, particularly in Game 4 when he used the same five players for an entire second half. He didn’t do himself any favors when he later reacted to criticism of that decision by bristling at a reporter’s question before stalking away from a pregame news conference.
During the most important moments of the season, Redick was in over his head. But as he admitted, he’ll learn, he’ll grow, he’ll get better, and he did well enough during the regular season to believe him.
Redick coached one team before the arrival of Doncic and the departure of Davis. He coached another team afterward. He deftly handled both of those teams while smartly disarming…
