Longtime player agent and current Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka has mastered the public relations angle of the job, but when it comes to managing the details, he’s still got some things to learn.

One year after luring megastar LeBron James to the Lakers as a free agent, Pelinka recently engineered a trade for disgruntled superstar Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans, who’d been a rumored target of the Lakers for months. Sources within the organization claimed that the plan was to land Davis and sign another star player with a max contract.

However, ESPN’s Ramona Shelbourne says that according to her sources, Pelinka agreed to the deal in principle before realizing that he hadn’t cleared enough space under the salary cap to sign his intended third targeted player. After it had been announced publicly, Pelinka called the Pelicans back, begging to restructure the deal to clear said cap space.

This misstep was the latest in a series for Pelinka, who has come under fire in recent months. Though he has extensive history with the Lakers from his time representing NBA champion and Hall of Fame player Kobe Bryant, Pelinka had never previously run the front office of an NBA team.

Preaching angles: If you are to commit to doing something important, you must weigh the cost and do everything in your power to see it come to fruition. If you agree with something in principle without being clear on the details, you aren't as committed as you think you are.

Source: Ben Rohrbach, “Report: Lakers had to call Pelicans back about cap space after Anthony Davis deal,” Yahoo Sports.com (6-20-19)