Obviously, the majority of the attention surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason will be focused on the roster and improving the on-court product. But the franchise is looking to improve itself in all facets, which also includes their staff and training.
Unfortunately, these playoffs have seen a number of catastrophic injuries, including two torn Achilles’ suffered by star players Jayson Tatum of the Boston Celtics and Damian Lillard of the Milwaukee Bucks. Doing everything possible to prevent these types of injuries and ensure peak condition for the roster is a top priority for JJ Redick and the Lakers and they are already making moves to do just that.
The Lakers recently garnered some attention for posting a strength and conditioning job online, but according to Dan Woike of the L.A. Times, the franchise is looking to reimagine their entire strength and conditioning program:
When people have wanted to gossip, they’ve pointed to the Lakers’ strength and conditioning job posting that somehow carried an ESPN segment on “Get Up” earlier this week. (According to people with knowledge of the situation, the team routinely posts jobs like this on LinkedIn and TeamWork online and did so last summer when they were hiring an assistant strength and conditioning coach.)
The method of the job posting, more than anything else, caught some people in Chicago off-guard — “We’d never post a job like that,” one rival team executive said — most people have lost the general thread, which is the Lakers trying to reimagine their strength and conditioning program.
The Lakers and strength coach Ed Streit parted ways last week, people with knowledge of the situation told The Times. Streit, a well-liked presence in the organization, joined the team in 2019 as an assistant strength coach and earned a promotion in 2021.
Some may not agree with the way the Lakers are going about this, but the end result is most important in this case and all that matters is finding the right people who can come in and reinvigorate their strength and conditioning program.
The Lakers have a vision of what they want everything to be and they all must be on the same page, from Jeanie Buss down to Rob Pelinka and Redick. And that also includes the training staff as everyone will play their role to bring about the ultimate success.
Lakers’ Rob Pelinka expects a lot of player movement this offseason
Of course, the Lakers front office also has a lot of work to do in improving the roster this offseason and general manager Rob Pelinka believes there will be a lot of movement across the league this summer now that teams have a better understanding of the new salary cap systems.
“So I think the lessons of the system are there’s still ways to transact and I think this offseason too there’s gonna be a lot of movement around the NBA, it just feels that way,” Pelinka said during the Lakers exit interviews. “There’s so many aggressive leaders of organizations that are expecting now, success. So I think there’ll be a lot of opportunities for us to look at, I really do. I’m excited about the offseason and what’ll come our way.”
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