Category: Sports News

Every day, we’ll take a closer look at another member of the 2026-27 Phoenix Suns, examining what they bring to the roster and what their role could mean for the season ahead as we count down to training camp and the preseason.

Jalen Green

Guard, 6’4”, 186 pounds, 24 years old, 6th season

There are make-or-break seasons, and then there is what Jalen Green is facing with the Phoenix Suns this upcoming year. He has reached an inflection point in his career, one where the 24-year-old must prove why he is compensated as the second-highest-paid player on the team.

He possesses so many intangibles as a player. He exudes athleticism and possesses a quick-twitch explosiveness that is difficult to replicate. He’s bubbly, energetic, and appears to be a stellar teammate with an infectious energy. Yet in the world of price versus value paid, there is plenty left to be desired. And when you factor in that his skill set ultimately duplicates some of what the Suns already have in their highest-paid player, Devin Booker, you begin to wonder how Green’s existence in Phoenix can truly become productive enough to match the value of his contract.

Because it isn’t simply that he’s making $36.3 million this season. It’s that the role he’s being asked to play doesn’t necessarily align with what this team needs from a player making that much money, especially on a roster already carrying dead cap. Green was brought to Phoenix to make the math work in the Kevin Durant trade. And while there are plenty of positive characteristics surrounding him as both a player and a person, consistency continues to elude him. Efficiency continues to be a challenge.

This season? Evaluation becomes the word synonymous with Jalen Green. His financial future with the Suns will be directly linked to what he does while under that microscope. Can he live up to the contract? Can he fit next to Devin Booker in a way that allows both players to thrive on both ends of the floor?

Because if he can’t, the organization will need to make subsequent decisions. And those decisions, in and of themselves, are complex.

Last Season

What can you really say about Jalen Green’s first season in Phoenix? We entered the year excited about the potential he brought, but a hamstring injury derailed his season and delayed our opportunity to truly experience what he could be with the Suns.

Green made his debut in Phoenix’s ninth game of the season in early November and immediately showed us why there was so much excitement, scoring 29 points while going 6-of-13 from beyond the arc.

Two nights later, he injured his hamstring. We wouldn’t see him again until late January.

From there, his season became a story of inconsistency. In his first 13 games back, Green shot 24.4% from beyond the arc and 35.1% from the field. Those numbers eventually stabilized, and he delivered some game-saving performances in the Play-In, scoring 26 points and making 8 three-pointers against the Warriors, but ultimately, last season felt like a lost year for Jalen Green. He started too late and had a difficult time catching up to a team that was already in midseason form.

Green appeared in 32 games, with the Suns going 17–15 in those games. So, a season in which Phoenix hoped to evaluate what he could become alongside Devin Booker in the backcourt ultimately didn’t answer many, if any, of the questions we had before the season began.

Contract and Roster Context

Green has two years remaining on his deal, and he’ll make $36.3 million this upcoming season, with a $36 million player option waiting for him next year. That makes him the second-highest-paid player on the Suns and, per Salary Swish, he is the 52nd highest-paid player in the NBA. He also becomes extension-eligible on October 1, meaning we are only days away from the window opening for Phoenix to potentially extend him.

The assumption is that it won’t happen immediately. Instead, the Suns will use this season to evaluate Green and determine whether his contributions align with both their short-term goals and the franchise’s long-term direction.

What He Brings

Upside, right? That’s what we’re all holding onto and what we’re hoping will eventually come to fruition. I’m sure someone out there still has his PSA-graded Panini prizm autographed rookie card displayed on their desk, hoping that it will jump in value.

Green possesses elite athleticism and a unique ability to blow by defenders and get to the rim at will, finishing with either hand. He puts pressure on the rim and can make an offense significantly more dynamic when he gets on a heater. He led the team with 17.0 drives per game during the brief postseason last April, and was second behind Devin Booker with 13.6 during his muted regular season. Amongst all guards last season, Green was in the 83rd percentile in drives, the highest of his career.

That is his superpower. And when you consider that his explosiveness was compromised for much of last season as he dealt with hamstring issues, it’s rather impressive that he still managed to put as much pressure on opposing defenses as he did. He could’ve returned from injury and opted to take it easy, avoiding explosive plays and limiting his attacks on the basket. Instead, he attacked the rim more frequently than at any other point in his career.

At Media Day last year, Jalen Green noted that he had been working on his midrange “in between game a lot more”. And while we had a relatively small sample size due to the number of games he played, that work certainly appeared to pay off, as his midrange game became one of his strengths. After grading out with a D- in midrange shot-making efficiency during the 2024–25 season, according to B-Ball Index, Green improved to an A- in 2025–26.

Sure, he might not be the greatest defender or the most consistent shooter, but there’s no doubt that he cares. You can see it in real time. Green wears his emotions on his sleeve, whether a possession goes wrong, he misses a shot, or he blows a defensive assignment. His frustration is visible because he holds himself accountable.

You want players like that on your team. Players who care about their performance and recognize when they’ve made mistakes. Of course, you’d also like those players to reach a point where they don’t have to be visibly upset so often because they’ve developed the consistency and awareness to prevent those mistakes from happening in the first place.

What Needs to Improve

Efficiency and consistency remain the two biggest challenges in Jalen Green’s game. While he possesses a plethora of ways to put the ball in the basket, we’ve yet to see him do so efficiently or consistently throughout his career.

He’s a career 33.9% shooter from beyond the arc on 7.4 attempts per game. That’s a clear area of opportunity, and one that should theoretically present itself this season. With Booker and Green by his side, he should see his fair share of open three-point opportunities. But he needs to improve upon the 30.1% he shot when wide open last season (on 2.3 attempts per game), with defenders 6 or more feet away. He needs the chart below to start trending upward rather than downward.

As I noted in my five biggest storylines for the Suns this season, finishing at the rim remains a challenge, even with his ability to get there.

He can get downhill with incredible quickness and get to the rim almost at will. The problem is what happens once he gets there. He isn’t always consistent finishing around the basket. He is a career 53.9% shooter inside 8 feet. For context, all guards in the NBA combined last season for 57.7% inside 8 feet. Green shot 54.3%.

In this season of evaluation, Green needs to demonstrate improvement in both areas for the Suns to feel comfortable either offering him an extension or keeping him rather than shopping him next offseason in hopes of getting something of value in return. Because if neither of those improvements occurs, how much value will he realistically have on the trade market?

And if neither happens, we’ll spend the entire season talking about it. We’ll ponder options at the trade deadline, explore the possibility of using his contract as a catalyst to make moves, and if nothing materializes, we’ll pick the conversation right back up when the season ends. That creates additional noise around a player who is already trying to establish the consistency and efficiency his game desperately needs. And that noise could ultimately affect the very things the Suns are evaluating.

The last thing you want is a $36 million player getting inside his own head, but given the circumstances, it’s a realistic possibility.

Prediction

I believe the Suns organization is going to give Green an opportunity to play more on ball, doing what it can to determine whether he fits next to Devin Booker in a traditional distributor capacity. They’ll hand him the reins of facilitation more frequently because that’s an aspect of his game he needs to improve if Phoenix wants to maximize this roster and solidify the rotations around Booker. And ultimately? I don’t think it’s going to work.

I think we’ll see a shift throughout the season toward Booker playing more on the ball and assuming the primary facilitation responsibilities. We’ll be told it’s a fluid situation, and to some extent, it will be. Booker will never be a traditional point guard who operates with the ball in his hands 100% of the time. But I believe we’ll gradually notice that the responsibility of setting up his teammates falls more frequently on Booker than Green.

In a perfect world, that’s exactly where Green could serve his purpose. He crosses the timeline with the ball in his hands and initiates the offense. And I’m not talking about making one pass and heading to the corner. I’m talking about reading the defense, identifying the best way to generate a quality possession, and making it happen. That cerebral aspect of the game that a facilitator and distributor needs to possess.

I think Green is going to have a solid offensive season when it comes to counting stats with numbers that, at first glance, people will use to defend his value to the team. But when you dig a little deeper and consistently watch the games, I believe we’ll find that much of that production was achieved inefficiently. And as a result, I expect the rumblings to continue, with the fan base spending plenty of time firing up the trade machine throughout the season.

Stat Prediction: 78 games, 17.5 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 3.1 APG, 44.1/32.9/78.9 shooting splits

Final Word

I hope I’m wrong, because it would be so much easier if Green became the player who lived up to the upside that warranted the contract he received. It would be amazing if the Suns had a functional backcourt in Green and Booker that didn’t require constant handholding or overanalysis. They simply went out, got the job done, and allowed the organization to focus more of its attention on developing the players coming up behind them.

Because ultimately, I like the idea of Jalen Green. I’d love to have a player on this team who can operate the way he does with his athleticism. It’s a unique skill set that adds complexity to the offense, giving opposing defenses another element they have to account for and ultimately opening things up for everybody else. Add to that the fact that I like the personality Green brings to the team. You can tell he’s a hard worker, somebody who cares about his craft and genuinely wants to get better.

But as he enters a season in which he’ll turn 25 years old, upside remains his greatest strength, and we’re approaching the point where upside alone will no longer be acceptable. Because eventually, you become who you are as a player. And there’s a very real possibility that Green becomes a D’Angelo Russell type of player. Somebody who entered the league with tremendous promise, was given plenty of opportunities to fulfill that potential, and ultimately became a player capable of exploding for 30 points on any given night, although rarely with the efficiency you’d like to see. That’s the outcome I’m hoping Green can avoid.

Devin Carter is a second-generation NBA player. His father, Anthony Carter, was a basketball journeyman who put together a thirteen-year career in the NBA playing for six different teams. Anthony got into coaching right after retirement, moving through the G-League, with stops in Austin, Sacramento and finally Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where his work as an assistant coach for the Miami Heat-affiliated Skyforce got him a promotion to the parent organization as a player development coach. He’s now with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Devin grew up on the move along with his family, starting his high school career in Greenwood Village, Colorado on the outskirts of Denver, before transferring to Doral Academy Prep in Doral Florida, when his family relocated to Florida following his father’s hiring as a player development coach with the Heat.

Doral Prep is located in the Miami-Dade metro, and is publicly funded. It is not, contrary to what its name may suggest, a private basketball factory. In fact, Devin Carter is the school’s only notable basketball alum. Carter joined the team the year after they won a state basketball championship, and was an early contributor.

As a 16-year-old junior, he made a mark at the A-Rod Classic in December 2018, when Doral Academy won the tournament by beating The Rock 46-45, with Carter scoring a whopping 32 of the team’s 46 points. He was also named the tournament MVP. A week later, he led Doral with 37 of the team’s 60 points in a 60-48 win over Miami Springs. In February he scored 30 of 49 for Doral as they beat Belen in the state tournament for their 52^nd consecutive win. His stats that year, 25.7 points per game and 5.8 rebounds per game, led to him receiving honors as Florida’s Player of the Year for his school’s classification.

Carter had been recruited by the University of South Carolina, whose coach was good friends with Jorge Fernandez, the boys’ basketball coach at Doral Prep, but he had drawn little interest from other major programs, and had not signed a letter of intent during the early signing period of his senior year. Devin was, nonetheless, enjoying a stellar season when he suffered a shoulder injury in February of 2020. Carter’s scoring average had jumped from 25.7 points per game to 28.8 in his senior campaign to go along with 8.7 rebounds per game.

In an effort to build his skills and draw interest on the college front, Carter opted to take a post-graduate year at the Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. The Brewster Academy is a small school located in rural New Hampshire near Lake Winnipesaukee and the Maine border, about a hundred miles north of Boston. The academy dates back to 1820 and offers instruction to students from grades nine through 12, as well as offering post-graduate instruction, typically for individuals looking to raise their athletic profile.

Tuition along with room and board for a year of post-graduate instruction at Brewster is an eye-watering $80,800. In exchange for that, students get access to a 50,000 square foot athletic facility with a 200-meter indoor track. Its most notable basketball alum is Donovan Mitchell.

Coming out of Brewster, Carter had jumped into the top-100 recruit lists at ESPN, Rivals.com, and 247Sports.com.

Ultimately, Carter enrolled at South Carolina, the school that had shown the earliest interest in his game. He was named to the SEC’s All-Freshman team in 2021-22. He played in 30 of the team’s 32 games, drawing seven starts and averaging  9 points and 3.8 rebounds. When Frank Martin, who had recruited Carter, was fired after his freshman season, Devin entered the transfer portal and landed at Providence.

With the Friars, Carter leaped into a starting role. Over the next two seasons he started all 66 of the Friars’ games. As a sophomore, he was an All-Big East honorable mention, and was named All-District 1 by the USBWA. He averaged 13 points per game and 4.9 rebounds. He also averaged 1.8 steals per game, and 1.1 blocks per game as the Friars drew an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, losing to Kentucky in the first round.

At the end of his sophomore season, Carter’s coach at Providence, Ed Cooley, jumped ship for a job at Georgetown, meaning that Carter would enter his junior year playing for his third coach in as many years.

As a junior, his scoring average jumped to 19.7 points per game, and rebounds jumped to 8.7 per game. His defensive game blossomed, as he was named a Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist, as well as being named the Big East’s Player of the Year, and making the AP’s All-Big East First Team, the Big East’s All-Tournament Team, and the NABC All-District 5 First Team.

After collecting these awards, Carter declared for the draft, where he projected to be a low-mid lottery pick.

Despite being relatively old at age 22, Carter’s athleticism and defense were praised. One mock draft called him “Marcus Smart Lite.” Former CelticsBlogger Kevin O’Connor ranked him the #5 prospect in the draft, with a “shades of Jrue Holiday” remark.

An article on NBA.com projected him as going to the Jazz with the number 10 pick with a few drafts placing him in the 11^th spot and going to the Chicago Bulls.

Ultimately, Carter went to the Kings with the 13^th pick.

The move was a somewhat baffling one, as the Kings were well-stocked with backcourt players, and, indeed, despite being considered ready to contribute based on his age and college experience, Carter appeared in just 36 games for the Kings, averaging 11 minutes per game, and generally failing to find a place with the team.

Carter appeared in 38 games in his second year with Sacramento, while drawing 12 spot starts. His minutes per game jumped to 18.4, and his two-point shooting percentage jumped to 51.1%, although his three-point shooting dipped to 26.3%. He had a couple stand-out games as a second-year player, notching 24 points in a victory over the rather hapless Pacers, and then 29 points and 9 rebounds against a Golden State team that was actually trying to win games last season.

In an indication of his poor fit with Sacramento, or perhaps the team’s inability to figure out what to do with him, his third-year option was picked up by the team before the start of his second year, but at the conclusion of that year, he was traded to Atlanta in exchange for the draft rights to Alpha Kaba. Less than two months after being acquired by the Hawks, he was waived by the team.

Despite a relatively unimpressive showing with Sacramento, he may be a good fit with a much better Boston team.

For starters, he seems to be in sync with Joe Mazzulla when it comes to expectations from young players. Joe has said that his primary focus for players with little pro experience are “can you play defense, can you execute a defensive system, and can you rebound?”

At the NBA draft combine, Carter prioritized one thing: “defense — it’s going to get you on the court.” He said that his priority is defense, adding, “I especially don’t like my man to score.” Devin also made rebounding a point of emphasis in his final season in college. “My sophomore year my coaches were telling me I could rebound, my freshman year my coaches were telling me I could rebound, my junior year, I actually committed to crashing the rebound every shot.” The result was a 3.8 rebound per game jump.

After being drafted, Carter told reporters, “I’m going to dive on the floor, take charges, anything we need to do to win.” He also emphasized his willingness to do “all the dirty work” needed to win. At his introductory press conference, he hit the right notes again, saying, he was going to bring “toughness, grittiness, and a will to win” to the court.

“If you’re not scoring,” he said at the press conference, “if you’re not doing anything else, you can at least guard and take that personally.”

“You want to give the coach a reason to play you, and every coach wants somebody who plays defense.”

Carter seems to be one of those players that needs the right situation and the right coaches to thrive. In two partial seasons with the Kings, his VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) was -.1 both years, and as the ‘replacement player’ in VORP is not a league-average player, his raw and advanced numbers suggest that he’s a bust.

But remember that Neemias Queta’s VORP at Sacramento was -.1 and 0 during his two years there, and that jumped to a 2.4 VORP with Boston last season. Queta’s BPM (Box Score Plus/Minus), which uses a league average player as a baseline, was -4.8 at Sacramento, as compared to a -2.8 BPM for Carter.

Given that the Carter prides himself on his defense, and that the Celtics have a top-notch player development staff and, apparently, far more patience than the Kings, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to project Devin as a potentially valuable contributor down the road.

Just before the season, there’s always something that seems to ragebait NBA fans, and it’s ESPN’s annual Top 100 list. Over the years, there have been some questionable decisions made on the list that people (including players) have had to say something about when they don’t see their names. There will always be some argument when it comes to any list, and some are valid. Others might need a little more convincing.

The Atlanta Hawks had four players to make the list this upcoming season, as Lu Dort came in at 100, CJ McCollum at 87, Nickeil Alexander-Walker at 41 and Jalen Johnson at 22. People can debate on if those players are ranked correctly, but that’s not the biggest problem here.

The problem is that the players who actually should’ve made the list didn’t. Those players would be Dyson Daniels and Onyeka Okongwu.

Okongwu has seemed to be one of the more underrated players at his position, which is interesting due to all of things he can do on the court. He had a career-year last season, averaging 15.2 points per game and shooting 37.6 percent from the 3-point line. Among centers, he had one of the best 3-point percentages, and he took over five a game.

Defensively, Okongwu once again showed the ability to guard multiple positions if need be, which helped elevate the Hawks’ defense. The argument that he’s too small to play center continues to come up anytime he faces an actual 7-footer, but nobody talks about how the Hawks are a better rebounding team when he’s on the floor.

ESPN might not take this into account either, but Okongwu was the one constant in the Hawks’ rotation last season. Through all the injuries and trades that they had at the center position, he remained consistent, and that led him to play the most minutes of his career at 31.0. Okongwu should’ve been somewhere on the Top 1o0, and it may be safe to say he got snubbed.

If not seeing Okongwu on the list was disappointing, then not seeing Dyson Daniels may have caused an uproar for some.

There were a lot of interesting takes about Daniels’ last season, and it always started with his 3-point shooting. 18% is not good for a guard, and it’s obvious that part of his game was a lowlight of the season, especially after he shot 34 percent the previous season. The good news for the Hawks is that everyone else around him could shoot, and he basically served as the team’s center.

Despite the 3-point shooting, Daniels was basically efficient in everything else he did on the court. Similar to how Okongwu had a career year, the same could be said for Daniels after he averaged a career-high in rebounds and assists. He techincally served as the point guard for the Hawks, and he played that role well, getting other involved while not turning the ball over at a high rate.

Daniels was still one of the best defenders in the league, and though he didn’t break any crazy records last season, he still averaged 2.0 steals per game, which was tied for the best in the league.

Of course, people are going to look at the 3-point shooting and stop the conversation there, but he was more valuable to the Hawks last season than people think.

There’s no telling what more Okongwu and Daniels would’ve had to do to make the Top 100 list, but fans will be excited to see if they take their games to another level once again this season.

For those of you who have been involved with the Open Thread over the years might recall that from time to time I moonlight as a musician. Last night I had a gig at this great spot in Leon Springs and I saw this flier posted:

Pierre Parker, younger brother of Spurs legend Tony Parker, is hosting a basketball camp at Voss Middle School in Boerne, Texas, located 30 miles northwest of San Antonio.

The younger Parker is currently an assistant coach with the Austin Spurs, but he has been involved with the Spurs since 2023, previously serving as a coaching assistant and video room coordinator. His camp advertises “a one-day clinic to polish your basketball techniques and skills” for 2nd-8th grade students.

The camp is schedule from 1-5pm on Saturday, October 17 .

Welcome to the Thread. Join in the conversation, start your own discussion, and share your thoughts. This is the Spurs community, your Spurs community. Thanks for being here.

Our community guidelines apply which should remind everyone to be cool, avoid personal attacks, not to troll and to watch the language.

More than half of the Lakers roster is new. Two starting spots are still up for grabs. The Lakers have a lot to evaluate in the next month.

After one of the busiest offseasons in the NBA, the Lakers begin their Luka Doncic-led era this week. Here are five storylines for the Lakers as they begin training camp this week:

What does Luka Doncic’s team look like?

The crown has been passed.

After sharing the spotlight with LeBron James, Doncic now takes center stage for the Lakers. The two-time scoring champion is coming off 33.5 points per game last season and was the focal point for the franchise’s offseason of change.

“Luka is the world’s greatest offensive player,” general manager Rob Pelinka said at his preseason news conference on Thursday. “For us to be able to have an opportunity as a franchise to have that player in our building every night ... is special. And it requires us to do special things to build the team around him.”

The Lakers brought in eight players through free agency or trade to remake their roster. For the first time in JJ Redick’s three-year tenure, “I feel like the pieces actually fit together,” the head coach said. Doncic and returning guard Austin Reaves are the glue that holds the puzzle together.

Read more:Lakers' new era opens with a thanks for the LeBron James era

“This team is their team,” Redick said of the star guards.

Redick praised how Doncic planned a team minicamp in Slovenia where players and some assistant coaches participated in basketball practices while enjoying team-bonding activities such as golfing, rowing and sightseeing in Doncic’s hometown of Ljubljana. Players were so appreciative of Doncic’s hosting efforts that they all presented him with handwritten thank-you notes after, Pelinka said.

In a 30-minute vlog sharing highlights of the trip, Doncic was asked what matters to him now that didn’t five years ago. During that time, Doncic has become a father to two daughters and changed teams in one of the league’s most shocking trades ever. His basketball priorities have shifted.

“Five years ago, I was third year in the league,” Doncic said in the video. “I wasn’t the leader I was supposed to [be], so I think the leadership is an important part of my case now.”

What can Walker Kessler do?

Redick said he plans to use Kessler similarly to how the San Antonio Spurs deploy defensive player of the year Victor Wembanyama: low and near the basket. Kessler’s elite rim protection — 2.4 blocks per game in his NBA career — can open a new defensive style for the Lakers, who can afford to be more aggressive on the perimeter knowing Kessler can hold down the post.

“I know we have switched a lot one through five over the years; that has been by necessity,” Redick said. “We look at him as someone we want close to the basket, protecting the rim. He’s been an excellent rebounder throughout his career, both offensively and defensively.”

Despite costing four first-round picks, Kessler is still unproven in the NBA. He showed flashes of brilliance, but is coming off a season in which he played only five games because of a shoulder injury. Pelinka said after a “deep dive” into Kessler’s medical history, the organization is not concerned the injury will linger.

The 25-year-old center’s age aligns well with Doncic, 27, and Reaves, 28, creating a potent trio that could define the franchise’s new era.

“If you canvassed the league and looked at age groups, even the ability to acquire someone, [Kessler] is just the perfect fit for those guys and building out the next phase of the Lakers,” Redick said.

How will Austin Reaves handle the jump to being a max player?

Before completing their new “Big Three” with Kessler, the Lakers needed to bring Reaves back. The former undrafted free agent was one of the highest-profile free agents this summer, but told reporters in July that his “heart was in L.A. the whole time.”

Reaves is coming off 23.3 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, both career highs. He scored 51 points in a game against Sacramento and provided one of the highlights of the regular season with a perfect missed free throw and offensive rebound that helped the Lakers survive with a thrilling overtime win over the Denver Nuggets.

But Reaves also played in a career-low 51 regular-season games, missing significant time because of injuries. He missed the beginning of the playoffs because of an oblique injury, and despite returning sooner than expected from the Grade 2 strain, Reaves struggled to get back to form consistently in the postseason.

No longer just the feel-good story, Reaves is now the second-highest paid player on the Lakers after signing a four-year, $185-million contract this summer. He is living up to his superstar status already in the offseason, being “a leader in the gym every single day,” Redick said.

Who will survive the training camp cut down?

The Lakers have 16 players on guaranteed contracts entering training camp and must get that number down to the league maximum 15 by the season opener on Oct. 21. While the Lakers figure out the two open starting roles alongside Doncic, Reaves and Kessler, the next month will also feature competition for the final roster spots.

Pelinka mentioned a consolidation trade that ships two players out for one as a possible solution to the overcrowded roster. The Lakers have wing depth, but could bolster their center options beyond Kessler and backup Kevon Looney, and are unsettled at power forward.

Jake LaRavia, Ziaire Williams, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Jarred Vanderbilt are among the logjam of options at forward, along with wings Adou Thiero and Matisse Thybulle. Vanderbilt and Dalton Knecht, the embattled third-year guard who has never found a solid role with the team after he was traded and returned in 2025, could be trade pieces.

“Building a championship roster is an evergreen process,” Pelinka said. “You’re never done with the work.”

What’s up with the ownership situation?

For the second consecutive season, the Lakers have an ownership change hanging over the organization.

Mark Walter’s sale of his controlling stake of the team is still pending, with Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner prepared to step in after purchasing the majority stakes at a $12.5-billion valuation.

While unable to comment fully on the ownership change because the sale hasn’t been approved, Pelinka said he has had “preliminary discussions” with Iger and Kushner that have been “really, really positive.”

“In terms of day-to-day, nothing’s changed,” Pelinka continued. “We’re operating with Lakers excellence.”

During his short tenure, Walter worked to overhaul the front office and business operations. The changes did not stop with Walter’s ownership now in limbo.

The Lakers have added more than 15 people in the front office, Pelinka said, including Rohan Ramadas and Eric Amsler in new assistant general manager positions. Pelinka said the organization “rebuilt our entire player experience and player development arm,” led by the promotion of Zach Guthrie, the former G League affiliate head coach, to the head of player development. The team has added new equipment for recovery and treatment and hopes to bring in more scouts.

“The goal, as the Lakers brand, is not just to be at the same level as all the other 29 teams in those areas,” Pelinka said, “but to be the leader.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.