Rob Pelinka’s first Lakers press conference leaves questions, but for good reason

“Winning” a press conference is highly subjective and trying to figure that out by itself is almost always a fairly worthless exercise. Extending that analysis out to what Rob Pelinka’s press conference might mean for the Los Angeles Lakers is, quite frankly, impossible.

Pelinka didn’t have to “win” his introductory presser, but it sure would have been nice to get maybe a couple actual details about the plan other than its mere existence.

Stories were told of that time Pelinka’s kid bled from the head, Michelangelo and the North Star — and those were just soundbites about Kobe Bryant, who sat front row to watch his agent begin his latest venture.

Coming to the Lakers as his clients get ready for some incredible paydays was brought to Pelinka’s attention, to which he replied that the call wasn’t a “decision” so much as it was a “true calling.”

When asked for specifics on how they might move forward with all the question marks throughout the roster, the response from both Pelinka and Magic Johnson was that they would move forward, while drawing from the past.

Sounds great, but it also came across as something a politician might say early on in the campaign process. Which brings us to the larger over-arching point: This is still insanely early in their process.

Magic had but a couple days to make the trade deadline work. Still, in those two days, he turned Lou Williams into Corey Brewer and a first round pick this June. He did so without Pelinka by his side in any official capacity.

This transition from Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak to Pelinka and Johnson’s Magic School Bus came together incredibly quickly according to several reports, and while Pelinka has been the clear choice from the very beginning, the league was probably watching pretty closely to make sure he cut all ties to clients before getting to work in absolutely any capacity with the Lakers.

Expecting them to hammer out the specifics of any plan moving forward in such little time is somewhat unfair.

But the work starts now.

The reports of the untenable situation the organization was working under with Jim and Mitch are worthless at this point. Crapping on those two in the media has become something of a hobby lately, but the clear theme of this was the importance of moving forward.

Pelinka’s press conference was about as weird as they come, but one of the first points he made was to say the Lakers want to be different. Not different for the sake of difference, but so as to welcome new trains of thought that may have been missed in recent years. There’s no way of knowing quite yet what this means, but hey, sounds good.

Pelinka repeated a few times that he’s a story teller (a theme eerily similar to stuff Kobe’s been saying since he retired) and boy, will we tell stories about this one.