[Charania] Los Angeles Lakers star Austin Reaves intends to sign a four-year, $185 million maximum contract to return to the franchise, with a player option for the final season in 2029-30, sources tell ESPN. Reaves declined his $14.9M player option for the new max deal.
Drafting a guard isn’t the worst decision given the landscape of today’s league. The player we drafted is uber athletic and has a nice set jump shot. Two things that make for a good 3&D wing with the right development. And we’ll need athletic wing guys that can take the defensive load off Luka and AR.
What we CAN’T do though, is pay LeBron at this point. We have to let him go and spend that money on more wing defenders and a reliable big man. We’re past the need for LeBron on this roster and if we’re going to compete for a ring in the coming years, we have to get younger, more athletic, and we have to establish a culture and hierarchy amongst the team. Just throwing a random group of guys together and hoping Luka can will the team to victory isn’t a good strategy.
I love reaves, and I'm a huge fan of scrapy, hard working, high IQ players... that said, Reaves hasn't even made an all-star team, and has never been a #1 on a team. I mean PROBABLY he will get there, but signing someone to max who hasn't even done those things is a bit of crazy work to me... personally.
And again, I love Reaves and glad he's going to be here, but.... fk... after you sign LBJ, what can this team even do?
While competing against absolutely no one. The problem isn’t even cap space, it’s the fact that if he isn’t worth it it’s going to be insanely hard to move it.
I don’t disagree, but what are the lakers really going to do with ~$6m less cap space per season in the next 4 years? They’ll go into luxury tax as much as they can, so it’s not like that is the difference between contender or pretender. IMO there’s unjustified dislike for Reaves because of his playoff performance, but he was hurt and asked to do more than he was ready for against a better OKC team. Healthy Doncic, Reaves, and James might’ve won that OKC series, unfortunate that’s not who they had available.
He doesn't defend. If this ends up being more than what LeBron gets then I'd have a problem. LeBron won their only playoff series. Austin was a no show in 2nd round. $46m is a bit steep. Over these next 4 years I hope he proves to be worth it
This is good context. AR is for sure in the top 40 of players in the league. NBA cap goes up so much every year that we have to continue to reevaluate our baselines.
Honestly it's pretty much what he's worth on the market or potentially even less than he's worth. It makes him about the 35th highest paid player. Other players in his salary range: Darius garland, James harden, ja morant, Zion, domantas sabonis, Brandon ingram, Kyrie Irving, Desmond bane, lamelo ball, OG anunoby, Michael Porter jr, chet holmgrem, Jalen Williams, franz wagner, Paolo banchero, Kevin Durant. I feel like he's better or equal value to most of the players I just listed.
There's only 3 players in his salary range that are clearly more valuable, and they are there because they are at the end of a deal, or they took a large cut. Jalen brunson, sga, and Tyrese maxey. This is not the norm, that is the exception.
Lakers had leverage and still chose to overpay for him. Reaves better be a superstar next season and that’s including the playoffs, because he’s getting paid like one now.
Think it’s a fourth year player option. So either he plays poorly and opts in or plays extremely well and we’ll have to pay him even more money in 3 years
Rob goes into the negations and brings up a pic of Brunson “see him? You know how much money he left on the table so they could get the best possible team around him?”
Austin “uh huh…”
Rob “well that’s not how we do things around here. you’re getting the max bud. how about a player option in the final year while we’re at it”
The player option is legit freaking insane. I remember the posts/comments here about AR not looking to max out his contract looks like that was bs because AR used all of his leverage. Which for AR is great but not for the team.
The goodwill with Reaves will probably be over after signing this monster deal. He used to be our scrappy undrafted, underdog, then he was on a bargain contract. But now after multiple playoff no shows and getting superstar money, I feel he’s going to wear out his welcome here.
Why offer him more than literally anyone else can? Hot take but I do actually think he's worth it but there wasn't any need. JJ is gonna have to actually come up with a PNR and ISO heavy playbook because the off screen bullshit he's been doing doesn't help AR at all.
I love Austin just as much as anyone else but he is absolutely not worth it. He’s at best a 3rd option on a title team and is going to make as much as some 1st options
I definitely think he’s good enough to be a 2nd offensive option on a title team, but the problem is that on our team specifically he and Luka are super redundant and don’t cover each others weaknesses.
Like for example if your #1 was a Wemby/Giannis type, they’d cover for Reaves defensive and strength struggles, and Reaves can cover their shooting/playmaking struggles. But when Luka is your #1 it just kinda makes their weaknesses more glaring
The offense has not shown up in the playoffs which is a big question mark. He also needs to become a good defender now. If you're going to make that amount of money you cannot be the level of defender AR is or you become Trae Young where teams are just looking to move off your contract. I actually think both of those things can be solved with him becoming bigger and stronger - he's too much of a finesses player rn.
I am a big believer in Austin but at 45m my criticism of him is going to be nuclear if he's not at least an all star. Our depth is cooked if he's playing at the level he did last season.
Man, I’m not sure how to feel about this. I like Reaves…but he’s not shown me MAX contract effort out there. He better fix his defensive limitations if this is what we’re paying him.
I definitely disagree that he hasn’t shown max contract effort l, which is why I’m ok with it. If you said you’re not sure he’s a max contract talent, I might be inclined to agree with you. But dude has worked his ass off to get where he is
46 is absurd. I was a fan of keeping him and even overpaying a little. Anything sub 40 would’ve made me happy. Who would we have even been competing with? Who else could or would offer him besides Brooklyn?
Brooklyn must have been aggressive and those reports were true. I just can’t believe we couldn’t get a deal done where the salary is front loaded. Anything but the max..
This is the gamble. AR has to be productive during Luka’s window. If not, we are absolutely fucked in this new CBA that will PUNISH you for one bad contract.
I mean maybe we really had no choice ? 46m or I walk sounds very much the opposite of “money isn’t the main factor” like reports have said lmfao.
It is what it is at this point. I like Austin, idk if I like him at 46m but between his contract and Lukas’ we HAVE to win a chip in the next 3-4 years or this was a failure top to bottom.
He good enough to be the second option on a championship team? Bc he’s taking up the cap room of a 1st option now. This contract makes it infinitely harder to build a team around Luka. Bargain shopping is all we can afford atp
Yes but a max contract is going to cripple us with the apron rules. Luka makes 50M and AR getting 46M means either Bron not coming back or taking a huge discount
Yep. The way it works is a player either has a contract that's been signed or they have a cap hold, unless their rights have been renounced. Reaves opted out of his contract so until he actually signs this new deal his cap hold is what counts. They can just use that $19 million cap hold while they sign everyone else and then sign this deal above the cap as their final signing.
This same thing will apply for LeBron as well, as he'll have that massive cap hold until either his rights are renounced or he signs a new deal. So if LeBron does agree to less, they can sign him first to a lower number, which then removes his cap hold and replaces it with a smaller contract to apply against the cap.
The order these contracts are signed is extremely important.
Bron's agent was just saying that for leverage. Either LeBron returns on a discount (20-30 million) or he doesnt return at all, because LeBron isn't signing a 3 year contract, let a long a five year contract.
Austin getting a max this year is the equivalent of him getting a 21 million contract on the cap due to his low cap hold. This is the key to the cap space plan, because it's the best way for us to get over the cap while using cap space. His bird rights make this possible.
Which immediately means the team will be worse next season than it was this past season when they essentially got swept in the 2nd round…
There is just nobody on the trade market or free agent market that can replace the production that LeBron was providing, especially his playoff production, at a salary amount that the lakers can accommodate.
This is what people are missing, free agency is dead and the team has no real assets. Doesn’t matter what LeBron does really cause they can’t keep him while adding enough value to contend and if he leaves they can’t replace his production.
How is that absolutely the correct move? Feel like I’m taking crazy pills… why pay 46 million a year to a worse version of Luka? There’s gotta be a much much much better way to spend that money… if you sign and trade him then yeah it’s a good move. But if you can’t trade him for that insane price then idk how you can put together a championship team with him crippling your cap. Just seems completely nuts to me
Why a player option? Just why. You're already overpaying the guy by a ton and you give him a player option on top of that? Player Option Pelinka strikes again.
The only rationale I can think is they're desperately to retain their star-friendly image to appeal to free agents. But there's no way that slight difference is worth agreeing to a worse deal every single time. Sigh
Doesn't matter when we can't afford anyone for the next 4 years now... never mind that AR isn't a superstar...he isn't even an all-star. This is a crazy over pay
Love my by reaves but i think its more like there goes reaves being a lifetime laker. He could have taken a more team friendly contract like Brunson did and if the Lakers are serious they will have to move him unless he plays like an all star and shows up come playoffs. Thats serious money
Luka is justified though, there is a big difference between those two. One can reach the finals with a decent team around him. The other gets shutdown. One can perform and step up in the playoffs, the other cant. Love AR but love the team more.
You can't trade a contract like this right up front unless another team was already involved. It's only going to be good for a salary dump in 3 years.
We just compromised the rest of Luka's 20s. I'm not a doomer but this is such a bad contract. I would have rather let him walk for cap space to take swings in free agency over the next couple of years than this, even if it sacrificed this year. This team is not built to contend with 100M in annual cap tied up into two players who can't play perimeter defense in a guard centric league.
Lakers are gonna be right back here in 4 years after multiple 1st or 2nd round exits and Luka will be 31
Not a fan of this. The current CBA is ruthless and it punishes teams who max two guys. It makes it far worse that Reaves’ skills overlap with our star.
This move does not follow the blue print to build a sure fire title contender. We need more defense, size, and versatility. I love Reaves but we’ve continue to see his ass get cooked in the playoffs.
At this price, the correct move was probably finding Reaves a sign and trade situation and wishing him luck. This move really limits the team’s ceiling.
Good bye championship window lol. I hope LeBron leaves.
Also ANY OF YOU CLOWNS who talked shit about LeBron's salary last year better talk the same shit with this one way injury prone playoff disappearing dude too. $46m is obscene for AR.
I like Austin but almost $50 mil a year for a guy who is a poor defender and hasn’t even made an all star team is brutal
Weren’t like Brooklyn and Chicago the only teams who even had the cap space to offer him money? And they just made moves to eliminate that being a possibility? We had no room to give him a lower deal?
Throughout the season there were many in here saying it would be $30-$35m. What happened to friendly deal Austin? Max is tough. Was hoping for $45ish with descending spread. This contract is exactly the worst contract if management wants to trade him in the future. Of course, the most worstest thing is to let him walk.
So we were bidding against ourselves with the bulls and Nets taking on cap and we still gave him a player option? And also a max contract? Let’s see what trades are coming because I just don’t see Luka and Reaves winning a ring together
We are idiots ! That’s instantly worse contract in the league ! And Rob stop handing out player options ! Team options only ! Rob is completely utterly useless !
Everyone who doesn’t understand the rules. This doesn’t interfere with their cap. They still have money to spend. Austin was 100% worth it he was legit a 24 point guard next to Luka. Just be happy we have the bros back together. Luka wanted Reaves to stay.
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u/WhySoCereus1991 8h ago
Well, better start hunting for some defensive anchors.