Richard Jefferson Has Inside Info On The Lakers, Says Rob Pelinka Needs To Go

Richard Jefferson is incredibly plugged-in to what’s going on with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was the best man at Luke Walton’s wedding, is close friends with LeBron James and talks to Tyronn Lueoften. On The Sedano Show Thursday, Jefferson had one message for the Lakers: Rob Pelinka has to go.

Jefferson told Jorge Sedano he couldn’t say everything he knows, but that based on what he’d heard, Pelinka should be gone from the organization.

Listen to his segment here.

Here is the biggest thing I took away from the segment.

“It’s not that many things that need to be changed (with the Lakers), but there are some major things that need to be changed. One of them is that Rob Pelinka has gotta go. Gotta go.

“If I am the owner — now listen, one thing that I’ve heard is that if you listen to the fans, you’ll be sitting with the fans. I’m not trying to say make everyone happy, but at some point in time Jeanie Buss has to take a step back and say ‘Why is it everyone that knows anything about basketball, that’s not associated with the Lakers, thinks that we’re all a bunch of idiots?'”

He continued ripping Pelinka throughout the interview, discussing how being a great agent didn’t have anything to do with running a front office in the NBA. He was not shocked at how dysfunctional the Lakers have been under him. Mostly because he’s never done it before.

He also dropped this while talking about Pelinka:

“I’m not here to say ‘Oh, Rob will never be good.’ But there’s just too many things as (an) outsider looking in and knowing a lot of the things that have gone on.

The lies, the deceit, how Magic Johnson left. And I’ve said this multiple times, if you want to have any inside look into how the Lakers are being run from the inside, look at how Magic Johnson left.”

He continued:

“I don’t think Rob Pelinka is a bad dude. I think he’s a very good agent, I think he could be a very good executive but he needs more checks and balances around him.”

So yeah, Jefferson is not a big fan of the Lakers’ general manager.