Luka-led Lakers are younger, deeper and built on connectivity: ‘The best teams are the most connected teams’

Rob Pelinka, Los Angeles Lakers president of basketball operations and general manager, said Thursday that every season is a little bit like the “Odyssey.”

“You launch a season, and there’s things that happen throughout that you can’t predict, but you have to stay together as a group and stay strong,” Pelinka continued.

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Third-year Lakers head coach JJ Redick, sitting alongside Pelinka for the preseason news conference, later referenced, more generally, the hero’s journey — a narrative in which a hero overcomes adversity and evolves as a result — and how allies and guides are critical characters in that expedition.

“I think if you look at ‘Lord of the Rings,’ all the guys from ‘The Hobbit,’ those guys had to be connected,” said Redick, who’s coming off back-to-back 50-win campaigns at the helm.

“They had to embrace the fact that they were allies. Us coaches, we’re the guides. There has to be a connection between coaches and players. Not to say there’s not disagreements, but looking at your teammates as allies and being connected to those guys, you’re not going to get through the journey without that, or the journey’s going to be even more tumultuous than it is because, the reality is, there will be ordeals and trials along the way. That’s just the nature of 82 games.”

Redick added: “So I think just embracing each other, to me, is the definition of being connected.”

Connectivity is what Pelinka and Redick drove home with those analogies. It was at the center of their message ahead of the 2026-27 season, the first in the Luka Dončić Lakers era.

When asked about the championship habits the franchise is focused on building this time around, Redick remarked that a common thread he’s detected over the past six or seven years in the NBA “is the best teams are the most connected teams.”

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After Redick spoke of “Lord of the Rings,” Pelinka, a self-proclaimed J. R. R. Tolkien fan, asked the 42-year-old Redick who he is in that universe. Redick said he’s simultaneously Gandalf and Samwise Gamgee. That presumably makes Dončić Frodo Baggins, as Redick’s tasked with helping Dončić carry out the…

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Author : Andy Backstrom

Publish date : 2026-09-25 00:16:00

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