Six Lakers who reshaped the roster and how L.A. can keep them

With his team three games under .500 just past the halfway mark of the season, Los Angeles Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka knew his roster needed to change — in a big way.

In the first stroke of reconstruction on Jan. 23, Pelinka sent guard Kendrick Nunn and three future second-round picks to the Wizards in a trade for forward Rui Hachimura, a 2019 lottery pick with a polished offensive skill set who hadn't managed to develop in Washington.

Two and a half weeks later, with the Lakers stagnant in the standings and coming off a loss to Oklahoma City on the night LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the league's leading career scorer, Pelinka deconstructed some more.

In a flurry of trades, the Lakers parted with five more players — Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, Thomas Bryant, Juan Toscano-Anderson and Damian Jones — along with two more second-round picks and their 2027 first-round selection (top-four protected), for a stockpile of new players and three second-round picks.

The players — D'Angelo Russell from Minnesota; Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley from Utah; Mo Bamba from Orlando; and Davon Reed from Denver — made an immediate impact.

«I'm happy for the changes we were able to make,» Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. «It just so happened that Rob was able to pull the trigger on some things that made the most sense in the world and was able to balance out our lineup and really bring guys in that complement our top two dogs.»

From their first game action through the team's four-game trip away from L.A. that ended with a 135-133 overtime win in Utah on Tuesday, the Lakers have gone 16-7, vaulting from No. 12 in the Western Conference on the day of the Hachimura