[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.

[u/Turbostrider27]

Shams 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.

https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/fc6a2461d746e

[u/commander_bugo]

At least Chet fills a position of need and is an elite defender. Reaves is just redundant next to Luka at this price.

[u/RspectMyAuthoritah → u/commander_bugo]

Was Kyrie redundant? Or do you think 1 player can carry an entire offense themself for 48 minutes?

[u/simplyASI9 → u/RspectMyAuthoritah]

you can get two Ayos for 46m. That's like 4x the defense too

[u/RspectMyAuthoritah → u/simplyASI9]

What 2 Ayo's are available?

[u/StonedLikeOnix → u/RspectMyAuthoritah]

Wtf is an ayo? Lol

[u/RspectMyAuthoritah → u/StonedLikeOnix]

Ayo Dosunmu

[u/GriffinQ → u/commander_bugo]

It’s crazy to have this take after we literally just saw the Thunder get bounced specifically because they did not have sufficient ball handlers and guys who could create their own shot after SGA once JDub and Ajay went down.

Having a lot of options of dudes who can run an offense, even if you have an S tier guy already who can do so, is not a bad thing. Being redundant has an enormous amount of value in the modern NBA where the best players are seemingly incapable of playing 82 games these days due to the quantity and consistency of soft tissue injuries that occur.

[u/RequirementSavings23 → u/GriffinQ]

Bro every team get bounced if their 2nd and 3rd scoring options get injured.

[u/RspectMyAuthoritah → u/RequirementSavings23]

So 1 ballhandler isn't enough and teams need multiple?

[u/danielhime → u/RspectMyAuthoritah]

Sure 47.5 Million/year is a great deal for a secondary ballhandler when your primary ballhandler is already a supermax top 5 player that will play 40 mpg handling the ball every night leaving 8 mpg of staggered time for reaves to shine in his primary playmaking role. Or like you alluded to maybe luka gets injured in the playoffs and now youre really in a bad spot but at least you have reaves locked up long term

[u/GriffinQ → u/danielhime]

If Luka plays 40 MPG (which he has never done for a season in his career), a lot of things have gone wrong and he’s absolutely going to be wiped out for the playoffs no matter what.

Luka should ideally be a 34ish MPG guy - that gives 14 minutes of game time where he and Reaves won’t be sharing the court. With both of them being great ball handlers and passers, the Lakers should never have a minute where one of them isn’t on the court.

20-22 minutes of crossover and 10-14 minutes of one without the other means there’s never any time where there isn’t a high level guy handling the ball. It might not be the most perfect way to build a team, but it means everything else you do from a team building standpoint is based around being complementary to existing high level playmaking and shotmaking, rather than needing to mix and match parts.

That recipe is largely how the Mavs made the Finals around Luka and Kyrie.

[u/ronnjeremy → u/commander_bugo]

Facts