Rob Pelinka would often meet with Jerry Buss and Kobe Bryant at the owner's home in Playa del Rey.

Buss died in 2013 and Pelinka wondered what he would make of their rebuilding state.

“I think there became a comfort in the banners,” Pelinka concluded. “No one saw the progress, the pioneering of new things, which is what we used to be known for. No one was saying, ‘We want to do what the Lakers are doing.’ It was the opposite. It was, ‘No one wants to go there anymore.’ ”

The Lakers are effectively following the Thunder model and the Heat model at the same time by developing a young core and also maintaining significant cap space.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Pelinka says. “Whatever the road becomes—Is it two max guys this summer? Is it one this summer and one the next? Is it splitting up the space and just growing this young core?—it’s a good road to be on.”