Welcome to our Lakers Season Preview Series! For the next several weeks, we’ll be writing columns every weekday breaking down the biggest questions we have about every player the Lakers added this offseason. Today, we look at Austin Reaves.
Last year was a bit of a convergence season for Austin Reaves and the Lakers, where his pursuit of a new contract, his ever-expanding role and his continued upward development were all on a collision course to determine what his future on the only franchise he’d ever known would be.
The fact that Reaves thrived when he was available to play and was ultimately rewarded handsomely with a lucrative new contract that pays him (essentially) his maximum allowable salary, should not be a surprise. The Lakers see Reaves as one of their true success stories: a player plucked from the world of undrafted free agents and developed into a high level contributor. There’s institutional value that comes from that beyond what he produces on the court.
But it is that tangible improvement he’s shown every season and is baked into the story of Reaves’ NBA life that the Lakers are also paying for. Reaves went from a converted two-way contract as a rookie who only saw the court because of his hustle, connective instincts and competitive nature on defense to, in every ensuing season, adding more responsibility and production offensively to the point that, this past year, he was slotted above LeBron James in the pecking order.
That Reaves has done all this while never completely losing sight of his role-player roots is what makes him a cultural touchstone for head coach JJ Redick and a leader as the now longest tenured Laker on the roster. That his talent, particularly on offense, has placed him as the second banana to Luka Dončić is why he’s ultimately paid what he is. But it’s the complete picture of him as a player and presence off the court that made the Lakers decision to go all the way up in salary the way they did this past summer such an easy decision.
Make no mistake, though, the deal Reaves is on now is not just about the player he is, but the one the Lakers project him to be. Reaves just turned 28 and may be squarely in his prime, but the team is paying him to continue to improve, to continue to refine and smooth out the edges of his game and build on the foundation he laid down last season as someone who is able to scale up in usage and responsibility to increase his production while maintaining efficiency.
It may sound reductive, but at least part of Reaves’ job now is justifying the investment the Lakers made in him. If he does, the team will be better off and (very likely) win as a result. If he doesn’t, not only will the opposite be true, but Reaves will find himself in the crosshairs in a way that he never has been before.
That’s the reality of being on the contract he is now. The Lakers hope, though, it won’t come to that. And history says they have reason to be confident.
What is his best-case scenario?
In October and November of last season, Austin Reaves played in 16 of the Lakers’ 19 games and averaged 28.8 points, 6.8 assists and 5.8 rebounds per game while shooting 52.2% from the field, 36.1% from behind the arc and 87.9% from the foul line on 7.4 attempts per night.
Of the 16 games that Austin appeared in, Luka Dončić played in 13 of them while LeBron James played in only four. That said, the Lakers went 13-3 in those contests and Reaves looked like one of the better players in the entire NBA while being discussed as an early All-Star and All-NBA candidate.
If looking for a best-case outcome for what Reaves can be this upcoming season, one only look at this stretch of the year where, without LeBron for most of the games and without Luka for a few more, Austin was clearly the team’s second option and was part of a team where every other player on the roster was put in a position to support the strengths of him and Luka.
Said another way, this stretch was about as close to the role Reaves will be asked to fill this season. Yes, the supporting cast has changed and there’s been a bit of an uptick in the usage of some of the role players with Quentin Grimes, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Collin Sexton all capable of being on-ball creators who can absorb possessions when needed. But, the fact remains that Austin will still be clearly slotted into the second shot creator role and will not have a third star like last season who he will not only split duties with but, based on their history as partners, will sometimes defer to in ways that minimize his own role.
So, while I can go on and on about a projection of how Reaves’ game can translate to what he’ll be asked to do this season and project the highest end of what that can be, it’s much easier to go back and watch clips from when he was put into this exact situation and looked like one of the top shot creating guards in the league.
What is his worst-case scenario?
Any worst-case outcome for Reaves almost certainly involves his health not cooperating and him missing significant chunks of the season. Which, if we’re being honest, should be at least a slight concern for the Lakers.
Last season, I do not think it’s a coincidence that in the campaign when he was asked to carry the biggest shot-creation burden of his career, he suffered two soft tissue injuries, first a calf strain in December and then an oblique strain in April. Maybe it was just bad luck, but playing the style and minutes he did last season was simply a much heavier load on his body and I think it’s only fair to wonder, when projecting him into a similar workload this year, those same rigors could end up costing him time.
And if injuries did crop back in, it’s not just that Austin’s availability would be impacted, but it’s all the ways that an injury and missing time impact a player’s rhythm, with ramp-ups and getting back into game shape or the right physical condition shaving away at your overall effectiveness on any given night. Something that would only be exacerbated without that third high-level shot creator no longer there to lean on or burden share with.
Beyond the injuries, however, there’s a chance Austin’s growth and development stagnates or, in some ways, even goes backward. Or, if that feels too strong, where certain parts of his game just do not work to the same degree they did last season. Austin is a very talented player, of course, but because he’s not an overwhelming athlete, he often needs all facets of his game to be working in unison to give him access to all the counters and misdirection that can make his game truly sing.
There’s a world, then, where multiple small things combine to lessen his game in what end up being significant ways. Let’s say he doesn’t shoot the three ball as well, especially off the dribble. Or maybe he doesn’t get as favorable a whistle. Or that his mid-range jumper doesn’t fall to the same degree it has in the past. Or maybe he doesn’t find the right chemistry in the pick and roll with Walker Kessler and their timing doesn’t quite sync up in the same ways it has with other players in the past.
If even two of these things happen for any extended stretch during the year, maybe he has a harder time getting to the rim. And when he does get there, he draws fewer fouls and it all sort of cascades to turn him into a lower-volume scorer who isn’t as efficient as he typically is. Combine this with a bigger bullseye on him and more expectations and there’s a scenario where Reaves is suddenly looked at as not the player the Lakers believed him to be, but on a huge max-level deal that is underwater in the trade market.
Now, do I envision this being likely? No, I don’t. But I also don’t think any of these things are totally out of the realm of possibility either.
What is his most likely role on the team?
There’s no question that with LeBron now gone and a remade roster to begin this new era of Lakers basketball, Reaves will take his place as the second most important player behind Dončić, both as an on-court talent whose production is needed for the team to play at its best and as a leader within the organization whose steadiness, general competitiveness, and approach to the work will serve as a standard bearer within the organization.
Further, there’s a strong likelihood that for half his minutes this year (and maybe more), he’ll be the best Laker on the court and will carry a burden and responsibility of shot creation and stewardship of the team’s entire offense that mirrors what Luka provides whenever he’s in the game. And while Austin did some of that this past season, after that first stretch of the year and a few games in March, he always had LeBron there as a release valve and someone to burden share with when Luka was not in the game.
Whether Reaves is up for this sort of challenge, particularly in the playoffs, remains to be seen. But the Lakers are betting on him being ready — and betting big. And if Austin delivers, it will simply be more proof that he’s exactly the player who they’ve continued to give more and more responsibility to since he entered the league. And to be fair to both sides, he has not let them down yet.
You can follow Darius on BlueSky at @forumbluegoldand find more of his Lakers coverage on the Laker Film Room Podcast.
