While the last couple of years have been filled with rumors about the dysfunction within the Los Angeles Lakers front office, Rob Pelinka has officially proven his abilities to build teams and create chemistry.
The biggest free agent signing of the 2019 offseason, Danny Green, can personally attest to this. Green signed a two-year, $30 million contract with the Lakers last summer in one of the key moves after Kawhi Leonard’s decision to join the L.A. Clippers.
Green immediately became one of the Lakers most important pieces and remained that way for a majority of the season. However, shooting struggles in the postseason led to L.A. looking in other directions to improve the offensive consistency of the roster, leading to the acquisition of Dennis Schroder from the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Green and a first-round pick.
While Green certainly would’ve liked to stay with L.A., he was not surprised by the trade, as Pelinka kept him in the loop the entire time, according to Melissa Rohlin of Fox Sports:
“I wasn’t shocked,” Green told FOX Sports. “I was just seeing where I was going. I was like, OK. Obviously, everybody is getting better. And I knew even when I signed (in LA), the contract that I signed for was going to be hard to maintain, was going to be hard to stabilize, especially with the pieces.”
“When it happened, I talked to a couple of people beforehand, so it wasn’t a blindside. I talked to R.P. [Rob Pelinka], he told me there’s going to be rumors about this, that and the other. They told me when they were going to make the trade before the trade actually officially happened. So, like I said, I wasn’t blindsided by it.”
Green is a seasoned NBA veteran who has won three championships, but has still been traded multiple times. While it’s not ideal, it is the nature of the business of basketball.
Pelinka showed his leadership ability by keeping Green updated and not allowing him to find out about his trade on a social media site. These are the types of actions that stick with players after the fact, and it perfectly encapsulates the family atmosphere of the Lakers organization.
Green bids farewell to Lakers fans
Following Green’s trade to the Thunder, he was flipped to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he will have a chance to compete for a championship alongside another former Laker in Dwight Howard. As that trade was just recently made official, Green took to Instagram to bid farewell to fans.
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