The Los Angeles Lakers are continuing their recent wave of making additions to the front office. They recently hired Jason Rosenfeld as the Director of Analytics and added Antawn Jamison to the scouting department.
It appears as though the team is making more moves within the scouting department as they have reportedly hired a new coworker for Jamison. According to international basketball reporter David Pick, the Lakers are hiring Can Pelister, a 19-year-old from Turkey, as part of their international scouting group.
Source: Lakers hire 19-year-old Turkish insider Can Pelister as the youngest international scout of all time.
— David Pick (@IAmDPick) October 13, 2017
Pelister will be the youngest international scout of all time, an incredibly noteworthy achievement. The new hire has previously worked for sports agency giant Wasserman.
The Lakers have not been especially active in the international market in recent years but they have hit on some prospects. Most recently, they drafted Ivica Zubac in the second round last season and were pleasantly surprised by his NBA-ready skills in limited minutes during his rookie year.
Pelister will join a group hoping to continue finding gems across Europe and other regions where unknown talent can get overlooked.
The Lakers seemingly value the teenager very highly if they are indeed giving him a lofty career this soon. It’s obviously unclear how much of an impact Pelister will have in the near or long-term future but the Lakers seem to have lofty expectations, creating an amazing story.
