Los Angeles Lakers: Playing the waiting game for Kawhi Leonard is dangerous

The Los Angeles Lakers are playing the waiting game when it comes to Kawhi Leonard. However, as free agents continue to fly off the shelves, is it worth it?

It’s funny how quickly narratives change in our fast-paced media environment. One second, you’re the hero – beloved by adoring fans. The next, the villain – the target of everyone’s vitriol and the butt of their jokes. And the next second after that? Forgotten altogether.

A little over a month ago, Baxter Holmes released his piece about the Los Angeles Lakers’ dysfunction, and shortly after, the Rob Pelinka jokes began coming in from every angle. And they practically wrote themselves. The Heath Ledger anecdote aside, Pelinka was painted as a power-hungry, pathological liar who, perhaps most importantly, didn’t fully have a grasp on the whole general manager thing.

Over the next month, he was roundly mocked and criticized for his, shall we say, questionable management style. This is probably a good time to say that we really have no idea whether Pelinka is a good or bad basketball executive. What we do know is that, relative to his contemporaries, he came into the job with significantly less front office experience. And by “significantly less,” I mean no experience.

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Is experience a prerequisite for the job? Most of the time, yes. But just this year, the New York Mets also hired a long-time agent as their general manager, bucking conventional wisdom just as the Lakers did when they brought in Pelinka two years ago.

This is the part where the narrative changes, and then changes again.

Just after the Toronto Raptors were crowned NBA champions, Pelinka grabbed hold of the NBA news cycle by completing a trade for Anthony Davis. Davis is an in-his-prime superstar, a two-way force who, based on talent alone, can put his name in the Best Player Alive race year after year. In a sport like basketball, where transcendent players can dictate outcomes more than in any other major professional sport, any team should be lauded for going out and getting one of the few superstars alive at any given time, let alone one on the open market.

Yet, Pelinka still got grief for what he gave up to land Davis. Granted, it was a lot. Like, a whole lot. But it’s a move he had to make, no matter the cost. If you get even a chance to pair Davis with LeBron James, you have to take it.

After the trade was completed, Pelinka came under fire for supposedly screwing up the timing of the deal. This sort of mishap would, in a doomsday scenario, leave the Lakers without a max cap slot to chase another starry free agent.

But thanks to a curious decision on the part of Davis and a shrewd trade just before the start of free agency, Pelinka was able to open up the necessary cap space to target the very best this free agent class had to offer, after which he was being praised for possibly reforming the Lakers dynasty.

Now the Lakers are stuck in a holding pattern, a waiting game. The free agent market has mostly dried up. Kevin Durant fled east and took Kyrie Irving with him. Jimmy Butler opted for a solo show on South Beach, while D’Angelo Russell was the prize the Warriors got back for relinquishing Durant in a sign-and-trade. Coming into free agency, all of these players, perhaps aside from Durant, were seen as realistic targets for the Lakers, players they could envision fitting in next to James and Davis.

Pelinka and the rest of the Lakers brain trust did what any smart team would do in this situation. If they’ve been given the indication that they have even the slightest chance to sign Kawhi Leonard, they have to wait out that possibility. This is especially true when the team in question is famous for star-hunting, and the player in question is a Southern California native.

Some have even speculated recently that the Lakers have moved into the lead in the chase for Leonard’s services. How much would things change for Pelinka if he puts together a James-Davis-Leonard trio? I imagine there would be a lot of apologies.

But what if they don’t get him? Will it have been worth all of this? The answer is obviously yes but, by waiting, and failing, they will put themselves in a difficult spot. The next best free agent on the market is probably Danny Green and if Leonard opts to return to Toronto, many have speculated that Green will go with him to defend their title.

That means Pelinka will have to get creative to fill out the roster, of which there are currently only four players. Does that mean overpaying Boogie Cousins on a one-year deal? With three frontcourt players already in tow – in Davis, James and Kyle Kuzma – it feels like that would create a logjam and more problems than solutions.

Marcus Morris could be a good fit. He’s played well in some big moments for the Celtics the last two years and has shown that he’s a capable role player. Perhaps most importantly, he’s represented by Rich Paul of Klutch Sports. We all know how the Lakers operate when they have cap space to burn and Klutch clients are out there to be signed.

Delon Wright and Kelly Oubre Jr. are more intriguing fits, as they bring more ball handling chops, but both of them are relatively young and don’t exactly fit with James’ timeline.

You can easily poke a hole in any of these potential fallback plans. They’re all still on the market for a reason. They’re quality, if unspectacular, role players, which is an archetype the Lakers will desperately need, whether they win the Leonard sweepstakes or not. If they do, they have a chance to reign over the league for the foreseeable future. If they don’t, filling out the roster with net-positive players will be tricky. That’s the price of playing this game.