The Los Angeles Lakers have reportedly extended the contract of the vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka through the end of the 2025-26 season. The extension was reported by Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes who stated that the ownership group headed by Jeanie Buss believes that the management and the coach are “in alignment on one vision.”
Pelinka originally joined the Lakers’ front office in 2017 after an extensive career as a player agent after representing Lakers legend Kobe Bryant as his agent for most of his career. Pelinka’s first task was to rectify some of the decisions made by the previous regime led by general manager Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss.
The update was also reported by Dave McMenamin, who stated, "Lakers VP of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka signed an extension through the 2025-26 season, aligning his deal with new coach Darvin Ham’s, league sources confirmed to ESPN. The deal was reached around the time of Ham’s hiring. Yahoo had it first."
These tasks included finding a trade for centre Timofey Mozgov, using the stretch provision on Luol Deng and trading away several young players on multiyear deals in order to free up cap space so LA a player in free agency.
He then received a promotion from GM to the title of VP of basketball operations in January 2020 after the team signed free agent LeBron James in July 2018 and traded for Anthony Davis in June 2019.
The Lakers then went on to win the championship in the 2019-20 season when Bryant died in a helicopter crash and the league was suspended for four months because of the coronavirus pandemic. This also was Jeanie Buss’ first title since taking over for her late father, Dr Jerry Buss, as team governor in 2013.
Entering the 2022-23 season, Pelinka has a massive task on his hand after the Lakers had another disappointing season with a record of 33-49 and even missing qualification for the play-in tournament. Pelinka talked about the preceding season in April and expressed that he will take responsibility for the team’s performance.