The Los Angeles Lakers can’t seem to stay out of their own way.
The 2017-2018 season was a terrible year for the Lakers, but the franchise started to get a glimmer of hope when the team completed a salary dump type of trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers that saw Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson gone from the roster.
On the outside looking in, people could see that the Lakers were opening up spots for max players, but from Larry Nance’s point of view, he saw betrayal and a bold face lie that was told him to his face.
In a well-reported and thorough look at the Lakers failures this year on The Athletic from Bill Oram and others, there is documented story about the days leading up to that trade that would anger just about every agent in the league upon hearing it.
“Nance Jr. and his fiancée, his college girlfriend, were interested in buying a house. He wanted to get a sense of whether the Lakers planned on keeping him around, and Pelinka told him that the Lakers would only trade him if it meant landing one of the game’s three best players. He told him to buy the house, multiple sources confirmed.
Before Nance could get that far, however, he received a call on the morning of Feb. 8, 2018. He and Jordan Clarkson had been traded to Cleveland in a salary dump that cleared cap space for the Lakers to be able to offer two max slots in the summer.”
Lying to players is not a good way to get other stars to come to Los Angeles if the athletes think they can’t trust you.
There have been many rumblings around the league that Pelinka is not well liked which further adds to the hardship of trying to get anybody to come and play next to LeBron James.
