Lakers' Jarred Vanderbilt injury debacle must force Rob Pelinka's trade trigger

12/04/2024 10:05 PM

Before the season, Los Angeles Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said he hoped to get 30 games or so as a sample size before he made any major decisions about the roster. This would be in addition to the 88 games essentially this same roster played together last year.

Now, with Jarred Vanderbilt not slated to play a game until January at the earliest and the team hovering at around .500, it certainly feels like Pelinka can’t wait much longer to improve this group.

For a couple of years now, the front office has made far more excuses than deals and the price for that stagnation is a broken, talent-depleted roster that Anthony Davis and LeBron James are barely keeping afloat like Spiderman pulling two sides of that ferry together in “Homecoming.”

Eventually in that movie, Iron Man comes along and pieces the boat together. In this case, Pelinka needs to follow suit and get them a more viable supporting cast.

Essentially the biggest problem with this Lakers roster as constructed is that James and Davis are the team’s only two-way players, with the vast majority of their teammates only capable of impacting the game on the offensive side. Frankly, with how James is defending this year, we might have to lump him in with that group. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the defense currently resides in the league’s basement.

The Lakers were hoping that Hachimura in particular would take strides in that department but it just hasn’t happened. Ideally, Redick would hold Hachimura accountable for his defensive woes by relying on other wings. Problem is: There aren’t any other wings he could viably go to that wouldn’t just make different versions of the same blunders on different parts of the court.

You know how Hachimura could be held accountable for not living up to his new responsibilities this season? He could be woken up by seeing his name in trade rumors or, even better, by having to take a backseat to the much-needed upgrade at his position.

With Jaxson Hayes also out the next couple of weeks, JJ Redick has had to rely on two-way (contract, not impact) centers Christian Koloko and Armel Traore. He’s looked at both as bandaids over portions of the rotation and hasn’t really experimented with either next to Davis, the kind of thing a coach would do with, say, a center the organization traded for and wanted to find more ways to get onto the court.

From players to coaches, Lakers vibes are starting to slip, too

NBA locker rooms can sense when a change is needed. A couple of years ago, when Russell Westbrook lingered on the roster into a second season, the vibes for more than an entire year were pretty morose. When Westbrook was finally, mercifully traded, and that dreariness was lifted, they immediately went on a run all the way to the Western Conference Finals.

Redick acknowledged the team caving in second halves as more of a norm than the aberration he was hoping it was the first time he saw it. Just the other night, the Lakers managed to score 80 total points, the fewest of the James era. It’s obviously too early to start charting examples of this team quitting all over again, but the front office has sent a pretty clear message over the last year that they don’t think this group is worth investing further trade capital into.

If a team doesn’t feel like the front office believes in it, then it becomes easy to let go of the rope.The front office just skipped two straight transaction windows with no improvements to speak of. That’s a lot louder than any feigned belief in the James-Davis core’s ability to compete for a championship.

Now, one might argue that not trading anyone or signing anyone to replace guys on this roster could be seen as belief, but the never-ending rumors about who the Lakers are considering acquiring make that a difficult sell. At the very press conference Pelinka said he’d wait 30 games to make changes to the roster, he admitted to reporters that the Lakers were in the market for a better backup center.

One argument against making a move Pelinka likes to rely on is how he couldn’t find a trade that would put the Lakers in the upper echelon of championship contenders. What this ignores is how those kinds of rosters are usually built over time, with several moves of varying sizes coming together to finally compete at that level.

The idea that, because the Lakers couldn’t find some magical trade that immediately solves everything, they shouldn’t do anything, is exactly how they wound up in the spot they’re at now. You can’t strip a car for parts and then complain when it doesn’t run.

We are heading into the beginning of trading season, with things picking up in mid-December when more players are available to be moved.

By the time we get into mid-to-late January, the market will be moving in full force, finally wrapping with fireworks in mid-February. Pelinka doesn’t have the luxury to wait all those months until then to fix the shallow-unbalanced roster he put together.

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