The Los Angeles Lakers had one of the greatest turnarounds in NBA history in 2022-23 as they went from 2-10 all the way to the Western Conference Finals before being defeated by the eventual champion Denver Nuggets.
The turnaround was made possible by the moves Rob Pelinka made at the trade deadline, adding some quality pieces that fit around their core of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves.
Seeing how much success they had, Lakers governor Jeanie Buss and general manager Rob Pelinka made the decision to bring most of them back for the 2023-24 season and beyond while improving around the edges.
In a recent interview with Dan Woike and Brad Turner of the L.A. Times, Buss discussed how last year’s playoff run made the organization even more hungry to get back to the playoffs and how that went into their decision to run it back:
“It absolutely did. When you think about where we started the season, 2-10, 2-11, and at that point, you kind of feel like are we ever gonna be able to dig our way out of it? So the idea that we got to the trade deadline, the All-Star Game, and the momentum started to go in a direction that hey, now we see a team that’s kind of coming together. Then they started making a run for the Play-In and we’re gonna make the Play-In and then we win that game and then we start winning rounds in the playoffs. You just get swept away. And it is a familiar feeling that we haven’t had in a long time, but as Laker fans know, that’s what we’re used to as Laker fans is going late into the season, into May and hopefully into June. I didn’t want it to end. Certainly we came up on a Denver team that was headed their way to a championship and so it was tough to lose to them but it was kind of nice to knock off the sitting champions when we beat the Golden State Warriors. So when we headed into the offseason, conversation around the office was let’s just stay on this roll, let’s bring this team back and build on it and see what we can do.”
The Lakers were able to re-sign Reaves, D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura while also bringing in the likes of Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Christian Wood and Cam Reddish, among others. They also signed both Anthony Davis and Jarred Vanderbilt to extensions, so this could be the Lakers team for the foreseeable future.
While they haven’t gotten off to the greatest start to this season, injuries and lack of continuity have played a big role in that. The hope is that guys can get healthy and things can start to click in the second half of the season similar to last year, although Buss and the organization are surely hoping that will be a quicker process this time around.
Jeanie Buss: Lakers valued Austin Reaves very highly in free agency
Perhaps the most important move the Lakers made this past offseason was re-signing Reaves, who was a restricted free agent coming off a breakout season.
They were able to do that, re-signing him on a four-year deal, and Buss recently spoke about how much the organization valued Reaves in free agency.
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