While the Lakers have spoken about expanding the front office, only announcing the major moves leaves it unclear how much is happening behind the scenes.
President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka offered a peek behind the curtain of the hirings the franchise has made this offseason while speaking to the media on Thursday.
“Super appreciative of the support of Jeanie [Buss] and ownership to build out and we’ve added over 15 people in the front office to various positions,” Pelinka said. “[We’ve]
really built out our strategy and analytics department, have hired two assistant general managers. [We] have more to do and we’re actually continuing to do that.
“Then in terms of player services, as JJ said, we’ve really rebuilt our entire sort of player experience and player development arm. And with that comes new equipment and new recovery and modalities, and we’ve worked with our training department to do that.”
Some of those moves that Pelinka alluded to include promoting G League coach Zach Guthrie to head of player development, along with being an assistant coach.
The franchise also hired Rohan Ramadas and Eric Amsler as new assistant general managers. The former will focus on the analytics and strategy side, which Pelinka alluded to, while Amsler comes over from the Heat after being the vice president of player personnel in Miami.
After clearing house of its scouting department last year, the Lakers are planning on building it out more now under Amsler’s guidance.
“I think you guys saw we hired Eric Amsler, who was two decades with the Heat, to kind of see over our player personnel, our draft scouting, our G-League scouting, and NBA scouting,” Pelinka said. “So, we’re going to be adding more scouts in those departments. That’s just one example of a sort of a vertical that will continue to build.”
The catch is that it’s unlikely any of these hirings will be made public. So, again, we’ll have to assume the Lakers are doing the work and, hopefully, see the results in improved scouting in the months to come.
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