The Los Angeles Lakers knocked on the door of NBA championship contention last season. Even with LeBron James struggling with a foot injury, they were quite close.

But he’s not getting any younger, and last season proved that he needs more help than ever. That’s why they need to be quite careful with every single move they make.

With that in mind, Lakers GM Rob Pelinka addressed the media to discuss his plans and priorities for the team’s offseason, stating that keeping their core together was at the top of their agenda.

NBA Rumors: Lakers Will Keep Most Of Their Core

“We’ve been pretty clear since our last game, with the success of making it to the Western Conference finals, we want to try our hardest to keep our core of guys together and also improve around the edges and on the margins to not only get back to where we were last year but hopefully take the next step, get into the NBA Finals,” the GM said.

“We want to try our hardest to keep this core together,” Pelinka added, stating that they will pursue “guys that play tough-minded basketball, that play defense, that play the right way.”

The Lakers won’t have that much cap space to operate with, but it’s not like they need to do some major tweaks to their roster anyway, so it’ll be interesting to see what Pelinka does in the next couple of months.