{"id":217930,"date":"2025-10-12T00:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T00:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/217930\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T00:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T00:34:07","slug":"lakers-earn-praise-for-underrated-offseason-additions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/217930\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers Earn Praise For \u2018Underrated\u2019 Offseason Additions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers are not afraid to make big moves. GM Rob Pelinka proved that last season when the Lakers traded for Luka Doncic a couple of weeks before the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Pelinka made a bold move this offseason as well, signing Deandre Ayton after he was bought out by the Trail Blazers. He also decided to sign oft-injured guard Marcus Smart.<\/p>\n

More news: ESPN Analyst Takes Shot at Lakers\u2019 LeBron James After Injury News<\/a><\/p>\n

Those moves could make or break this year for the Lakers. NBA general managers actually seem to like the moves that Pelinka ended up making.<\/p>\n

In the annual preseason poll sent to GMs, executives around the league like what the Lakers were able to do, specifically with the signing of Ayton.<\/p>\n

When asking which player was the most underrated acquisition, GMs gave a vote for Deandre Ayton. He was in the others receiving votes category, not getting a large enough number of votes to get an actual percentage.<\/p>\n

Signing Ayton is an upgrade at the center position if he plays with some motivation. His issue in Portland was that he played like he didn’t really care to be out on the court.<\/p>\n

More news: What is Sciatica? Everything to Know About LeBron James\u2019 Injury for Lakers<\/a><\/p>\n

Now that he’s on a team that has championship aspirations, perhaps he is able to keep his motivation level higher. He hasn’t played on a team this good since he was with the Suns.<\/p>\n

This will be Ayton’s last chance to play for a team that has a real shot to win a championship, so he needs to play well this season.<\/p>\n

Pelinka gave Ayton a two-year contract, so they are giving him a short trial period. They are hoping that he can prove in those two seasons that he is worthy of being invested in as the center of the future.<\/p>\n

There’s no denying that Ayton is very talented, but he has to show that he cares to get better. That will be the biggest issue that Pelinka will be watching this year.<\/p>\n

Last year with the Trail Blazers, Ayton averaged 14.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 1.6 assists per game.<\/p>\n

For more news and notes on the Los Angeles Lakers, visit Los Angeles Lakers on SI<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Lakers are not afraid to make big moves. GM Rob Pelinka proved that last season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-217930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}