Austin Reaves has been absolutely electric to kick this season off for the Lakers. The fifth-year guard is averaging a cool 30.3 points through L.A.’s opening slate of games and is a large reason the Lakers enjoy an 8-3 record to start the year despite missing LeBron James the whole time and Luka Dončić missing a few games due to injury. Reaves has played well alongside Dončić when the Slovenian superstar is healthy and has proven an offensive machine unto himself when Dončić is sidelined.
It’s a very exciting sign for the Lakers’ championship hopes this season. Reaves has been a good player for a few seasons at this point, but right now he’s playing at an All-Star level. It gives the roster an embarrassment of riches offensively, given how good Dončić has been and how effective James is likely to be once he returns to the court.
It’s also proving to be a rather expensive development for Los Angeles. Reaves is currently balling out on a cheap deal relative to his talents, with an annual salary of $13.9 million. He also has a player option at the end of the season that he can decline to enter unrestricted free agency. Which seems to be a very likely outcome given he can easily command at least $20 million annually (if not more) based on his body of work last season, much less what he might do this campaign.
The Lakers can keep him in town, with their trump card being the unique ability to offer him a $241 million max contract. It’s doubtful they do so; while Reaves has been playing out of his mind, he doesn’t have the track record required to expect a max deal on a team also paying Dončić’s enormous salary and, potentially, LeBron too. But it would also be very damaging for Los Angeles to lose him for nothing as the franchise endeavors to build a championship-caliber roster around Dončić.
It makes Reaves’s play something of a catch-22. It’s good for the team’s goals for Reaves to perform like one of the NBA’s best scorers, but the Lakers will have to pay more with each big performance, to the point they could be priced out of his services. It will be a fascinating subplot to monitor as the season progresses, and this week Reaves was asked about it all.
Speaking to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin about his future, Reaves said he tries not to think about it but had a strong message for the Lakers about what kind of contract he’ll be seeking.
“I try not to think about it,” Reaves said. “Honestly. I've said it a million times. I want to be in L.A. I love it. Even though the other extension was turned down, that doesn't mean that I'm trying to go get a f---ing gigantic number that don't make sense. I want to be here, I want to win. I want to do everything that can help this organization be better. So I don't try to think about those things."
McMenamin further reported Reaves is not “obsessed” with earning every dollar possible on his next deal, but “knows there is a range based on industry standards.”
It is undoubtedly an encouraging thing to hear because Los Angeles will not, and really cannot, offer Reaves that kind of max deal. It would make building up the rest of the roster nearly impossible thanks to the apron penalties. But Reaves’s quote above indicates there’s plenty of room between a max offer and his current deal where the two sides could find an agreement.
If not, Reaves will be an extremely popular man as a free agent. There are numerous teams who could use his scoring and will happily fork over whatever they have to in order to get him on the roster.
For now, though, it seems Reaves would like to stay in Los Angeles. How he plays the rest of the season will go a long way towards determining if that’s possible and how much he’d have to give up in order to make it happen.
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