Lakers transition from ‘LeBron Era’ to a Luka Doncic-led squad

EL SEGUNDO — So much had changed since Rob Pelinka last publicly spoke with the media.

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More than half the Lakers’ roster is new. Pelinka made Austin Reaves a max level-contract player as the permanent partner to Luka Doncic. Lakers ownership is set to change hands for the second time in two seasons – in a $12.5 billion acquisition from Mark Walter to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner that is still awaiting approval from the NBA. Lakers governor Jeanie Buss is battling her siblings to try and halt the sale of their minority ownership and dissipation of the Buss Family’s involvement with the franchise.

And as Pelinka, entering his ninth full season with the Lakers and his sixth as the team’s president of basketball operations, reminded the world – moments after conducting a moment of silence for longtime public address announcer Lawrence Tanter, who died Wednesday at 76 – LeBron James is gone.

“I thought it would be appropriate at the front to express gratitude for the LeBron Era here,” Pelinka said Thursday afternoon during his annual preseason press conference with head coach JJ Redick. “Clearly, new team and new players, and that’s what we’re going to talk about today, but we as an organization are still grateful for the run that we had with him here.”

It’s the ‘LeBron Era’ no more inside the Lakers’ facility.

Marked by a transformative offseason in which Pelinka said the team added 15-plus people to the front office staff, as well as nine players – highlighted by the blockbuster trade addition of former Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler as the team’s franchise center – the Lakers will be playing on a different plane of franchise identity heading into the 2026-27 regular season.

Doncic, Reaves and Kessler. Pelinka built his star trio, with all of them on multi-year contracts as the focal point of the Lakers’ future. Pelinka stressed three fundamental pillars for their offseason goals: retain Austin Reaves, acquire a franchise center and “develop a roster of JJ Redick dribble-pass-shoot players that were younger and add depth to our roster.”

Pelinka said Thursday he believes he’s accomplished all three.

Former Lakers guard Marcus Smart told the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday that he felt disrespected by the Lakers’ offer to him in free agency. When asked about the lack of continuity on the roster, instead opting to sign new players to fill out the team (Austin Reaves was the only free agent who the Lakers re-signed), Pelinka pointed to their thesis: rounding out a team in a similar age to Reaves and Doncic.

The average age of the Lakers’ roster is 25.5 years old as currently constructed.

As of Thursday, the Lakers are one spot over the league maximum of fully-guaranteed players allowed on a team at any given time. Pelinka said competition through training camp and the preseason will determine the final 15 players ahead of the Opening Night roster cut deadline, adding that he wouldn’t rule out a two-for-one trade to finalize the roster.

Redick said for the first time in three seasons, he has a roster full of players in fully defined roles. He said he has six or seven wings at his disposal and that the team should be naturally deeper and able make better use of its bench players.

“I feel like the pieces actually fit together, and so those roles probably get even more crystallized,” Redick said. “I’ll give you the wings, like there’s a very clear ask for you to be able to play, and if you don’t do those things, then you’re not going to play. That’s just the reality. We’ve already had some of those conversations this week with our players. We have high, high confidence in these guys that they’re going to buy into that.”

Insisting that starting spots are still up for grabs, Redick said he is confident in the trio of Doncic, Reaves and Kessler – who Pelinka said was “fully healthy, fully cleared” – leading the way.

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“I’m pretty confident in three of the spots,” Redick said. “The other two spots will not be two white guys. Those are the two things that’s not changing.”

Both Pelinka and Redick credited the offseason camaraderie built through a pair of player minicamps – one in Las Vegas during the NBA Summer League, and the other through an all-expenses-paid trip for the Lakers’ roster to Ljubljana, Slovenia for five days in August.

“Part of the reason we’re so excited is because we know they’re gonna connect on a human level,” Redick said. “That’s only gonna help them on the court.”

After the team returned from Slovenia, Pelinka said he was having a conversation with new wing Matisse Thybulle at the team’s practice facility about the power of the “handwritten note.”

Thybulle replied with a story.

“At one point (guard) Collin Sexton stood up and was like, ‘Look at where we are. Like, there are a lot of people that never get to come overseas and experience. … This is amazing, and someone’s treating us to it,’” Pelinka said. “And then I guess at the end of the trip, each player took the time to write a handwritten note and then present it to Luka to thank him.”

On the ownership front, Pelinka said introductory meetings with Iger and Kushner have been “excellent” but added that he can’t say more than that the tone was “positive” because the transaction is pending.

While he said he was grateful for what he’s learned from working with Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, Pelinka also said he wasn’t able to speak further on the relationship between the L.A. sports teams (Walter still owns the Dodgers) due to the pending sale.

Pelinka said the front office additions were primarily in the strategy and analytics department. They hired two assistant general managers – Eric Amsler and Rohan Ramadas – and “rebuilt our player experience and player development arm.”

“With that comes new equipment, new recovery and modalities,” Pelinka said. “We’ve worked with our training department to do that. Just changed everything everywhere, but I think the goal, as the Lakers brand, is not just to be at the same level as all the other 29 teams in those areas, but to be the leader. That’s just what’s required here.”

Thursday was just the start of the Lakers cementing the tone with media day scheduled for Monday and training camp to follow.

A trek, a journey.

Or as Pelinka opined as the team’s theme for the season ahead: “The Odyssey.”

“Every season is a little bit like ‘The Odyssey,’ if anyone has seen the movie,” Pelinka said. “You launch a season, and there’s things that happen throughout that you can’t predict, but you have to stay together as a group and stay strong.”

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