Rob Pelinka was recently asked if he has a general philosophy of how he's approaching his job as general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers in light of their multi-year rebuilding endeavors.

"The most important thing is that when there is extraordinary success, you can get to a place in life where you rest on that success," said Pelinka. "I think all of us – Luke (Walton), Magic (Johnson), myself, Jeanie (Buss) – feel like there’s a little bit of a sort of casualness that has crept in. Like, we’ve done all these great things, so maybe we don’t have to outwork everyone else, or out-hustle everyone else, or have a greater version than everyone else.

"So I think we’ve all gotten to that point where we say, ‘OK, we’re blowing up any of those notions and we’re going to bring back a new mentality … which is … what does it mean to put on the purple and gold Lakers jersey? What sense of pride is there? What am I signing up for when I do this?’ When I get out my keycard in the morning, I think, ‘What does that mean for this day?’ This is a position of responsibility for one of the most storied franchises in all of sports. What responsibility do I have to this day and to this moment? And I think bringing that back, all of us, to the players and the fans is one of the first things we’re working on.

"And then to the specifics to team building, there are a lot of uncertainties. Do we have our draft pick in June, or do we not? What free agents do extensions? What free agents become true free agents? What players from other teams are teams going to think about trading? There are millions and millions of combinations. It’s almost like a Rubik’s Cube. If you’re trying to solve it, there are many different combinations and turns you could make to get to the end path. You have to really study that board hard and make all the right turns to get there, but there is likely more than one way to get to the end.

"But you have to stay focused, and keep turning and looking at it like a chess game, keep moving the pieces around the board knowing what the goal is. The goal is to win a championship and we’re going to do everything we can to bring that probability here again. But to articulate and say ‘Here’s step one, step two and all the way to 10’ is just impossible."