Naughty speculation on my part but 20th Century Fox's pursuit of Battlestar Galactica through the courts makes me wonder if the Cylons were coincidentally close to a battledroid storyline he may have mentioned to one of the shared staff.

Glen Larson was working on the idea long before Star Wars but Lucas may have come to the conclusion it was a rip off and mentioned it to Fox.

The PT and bits of ROTJ are a bit 'Galacticaish' so maybe he had something like that in his head and Larson through parallel evolution also had a rag tag fleet fleeing from killer robots.

As both projects had shared staff Paranoid FOX Was Paranoid (possibly).

Its not as if the show resembles the first Star Wars film any more than it resembles the earlier space operas they both share as inspiration.