The Los Angeles Lakers may find it more difficult than other teams to make trades before, during and after the NBA Draft, and general manager Rob Pelinka has an interesting theory as to why.
You’re all just jealous.
When asked on Thursday about teams possibly being hesitant to do business with the Lakers, Pelinka downplayed the notion that teams have completely closed the lines of communication with L.A. He did, however, note that others teams have a “natural envy” of the purple and gold.
Rob Pelinka on whether teams are hesitant to do business with the Lakers. "It's not like teams are saying 'I won't do a deal with the Lakers' but i do think when you have 16 banners, there's going to be a natural envy from your competitors."
— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) June 22, 2018
While not exactly modest, Pelinka’s opinion probably isn’t that far off. There have been reports that the Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs won’t even entertain the idea of trading Kawhi Leonard to the Lakers, and that probably has to do with L.A. being their Western Conference rival.
The good news for Pelinka is that if other teams are so jealous of all the success the Lakers have had, players should still consider L.A. a top destination in free agency. Whether or not that allure is enough to help them land the biggest prize of the offseason remains to be seen.
