JULY 6: Reaves is officially back under contract with the Lakers. The team issued a press release announcing the signing.
JULY 1: Restricted free agent guard Austin Reaves will be returning to the Lakers, per Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link), who hears from agents Aaron Reilly and Reggie Berry that Reaves will be signing a four-year contract worth the full Early Bird amount to remain in Los Angeles.
The deal will be worth just shy of $54MM. It will include a fourth-year player option, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link), and will feature a 15% trade kicker, according to Charania (Twitter link).
It’s a great outcome for the Lakers, who only held Reaves’ Early Bird rights and couldn’t legally offer him any more than approximately $54MM over four years. Because he was an Arenas provision free agent, Reaves would have been eligible for a back-loaded offer sheet worth in excess of $100MM from a rival suitor, which Los Angeles could have matched.
However, either that offer sheet didn’t materialize or Reaves simply opted to negotiate directly with the Lakers in order to stay with the club that helped facilitate his breakout season in 2022/23.
The No. 12 free agent on our top-50 list, Reaves averaged 13.0 points, 3.4 assists, and 3.0 rebounds in 28.8 minutes per game with an excellent .529/.398/.864 shooting line in 64 regular season appearances last season. He was a full-time starter in the postseason and played even better, putting up 16.9 PPG, 4.6 APG, and 4.4 RPG on .464/.443/.895 shooting in 16 contests (36.2 MPG).
It has been a busy 24 hours for the Lakers, who also reached agreements to re-sign D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura and lined up deals with Gabe Vincent, Taurean Prince, Cam Reddish, and Jaxson Hayes.
Assuming they sign Maxwell Lewis to a rookie-minimum contract, the Lakers will be right up against the luxury tax line with at least one roster spot still to fill, tweets Yossi Gozlan of HoopsHype. However, they’ll have plenty of breathing room below the first tax apron ($172.3MM), which will be their hard cap for the season.
The Lakers will likely seek one more big man with their 14th roster spot and will plan on keeping the 15th slot open to begin the 2023/24 season, tweets Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
LFG!!!!!!
Bargain
So much for the talk of 100MM. 54MM is a steal.
Teams could have offered more which is what was needed for reaves to get a bigger contract as lakers were maxed. Lakers can match higher but couldn’t make higher offers.
I realize that. Just surprised no one forced them to match a higher offer.
In order to force the Lakers to match a big offer you have to have the cap space to make that offer. Not many teams are in position to do that and of those teams most if not all probably don’t have a need for Reeves and are not going to just do it to f*** with the Lakers.
That’s true, hadn’t reconsidered that as some teams formerly with cap space used it for other purposes.
Austin Reaves just signed on a great contract!!! I’m so happy he got his bag because he really deserves it. He’s a two way player and very efficient player. He’s going to be the Los Angeles Lakers Starting Shooting Guard this upcoming season and the foreseeable future.
There’s no way he didn’t leave money on the table. He got less than Strus.
Nobody offered him that huge offer sheet. This was the most the Lakers were allowed to pay him. They lucked out.
He could have signed an offer sheet worth up to 100mil, but there was no indication any team was offering that. Lakers would have matched it, but they would have waited until the last possible day, which would have tied up cap space for the other team until the deal was matched. This is exactly the scenario the Lakers were going for.
Good for him. Loved him in summer league. Saod he should have played right away, but people clowned me for 1.5 years about that until he finally got the real opportunity, being used better too, and now they all love him. Reminded me of a few guys, like Strus, Mike Miller, couple of others. Plays hard. Always in the right spots, knows how to play. Defends more than adequately, and can shoot the 3, and put the ball on the floor and make plays
As I said in summer league, the perfect for with Lebron and Davis, especially as they’ve lacked wing help the last 3 years. They just need 1 more guy at that spot
Congrats to him on getting paid in a spot that needs him and taking advantage
Lakers really crushed the offseason so far.
Now LeBron can’t claim he carried a team since he now has a super team around him. No excuses for him and no sport writer can claim he did anything by himself.
Lakers might even be set up to semi-survive Bron’s exit next summer. Especially if Rui & Reaves continue to play as well as they did in the playoffs. & especially especially if Hood-Schifino is able to earn/keep a rotation spot sooner than later
…that’s right. I completely forgot about the draft. They might not need what I was suggesting in my above post.
I also forgot about Cam Reddish
Another important thing to remember… this is most likely Bron’s last season in LA
Ya, that’s the reason I could see the Hachimura deal, b/c they can use him at the 4/5 next to Davis if Lebron wasnt there
Sank- Long term Health of the franchise was my number 1 goal coming outta this period
I said a month ago we have the potential to be the first team that exits LBJ better then when he came in. OFC we had/have ample time to screw that up but I think we escaped that….for now at least with a very healthy offseason in the books
No trades, nothing Big, just hard nosed players and a clean ledger
But onto the draft and Hood Schifino
LAL GSW and MIA fans gotta be stoked, all had Hou carrots dangled at the draft and all refused to select their players. Coming from those 3 teams history Id be high on all 3 guys right now
Where’s all the idiots who were guaranteeing SAS giving him a 100 mil max offer? Lmao
54 mm is the maximum the LAL could give him directly as a RFA with only 2 years experience. Anything above that would have required him to sign an offer sheet with a cap space team with backloaded 3rd and 4th years. That wasn’t going to happen. Seriously, who would do that in this environment?
Properly paid. These 90 million offers people were throwing around would’ve been too much but this seems like a fair deal for him.
“Fair”? What are you basing this off of? Post your logic or dont post at all.
“seems like a fair deal” sounds like an opinion. No need for logical explanation. But we appreciate your desire to hear logic…something you usually lack A’sfaninUK
All these laker deals make a lot of season. Leave some money on the table but play with 2 top 10 players with a great chance to get a ring.
Damn. Spurs couldn’t do 4 years/$72 mill?
Not even 3 years/$60 mill?? Just stealing a player from the Lakers would’ve been satisfying enough for the Spurs organization. They hate the Lakers.
Lakers would’ve matched it
We, LAL fans, hate the Spurs too, in a good rivalry way.
Kobe once said if wasn’t for the Spurs, he would have a couple more rings.
So Lakers over the cap? How much Tax will the Lakers pay next season?
Lakers fans who obsessed with mid are stoked!!
Could you please provide the logic in the post?
I’m available to fill that last roster spot at minimum cost. My position is: DNP.
Wow Rob, a well deserved vacation is in order, just nailed this free agency in 20 hrs, not bad my friend
Summer league gonna be a blast next week, for anyone whoes never been Id advise taking the trip
If you needed added incentive the LAL and facing Wemby this year as well
*Id love if they took Myles Leonard with the last spot but it will probably go to Max Lewis or Swider to save a little money or even Tristian Thompson on some sorta non fully guaranteed deal till Jan 15 to serve the Dudley role….which I’m very cool with considering the first 14 players in tow. He could serve as a potential good mentor to Cam and Hayes (who definitely need guidance), Could use some meat on the frontline as well ….woulda really loved that Eubanks fella that Phx got on the min too but zero complaints
Was aiming to get out for summer league this year, myself, but health stuff got in the way. Going to have to shoot for next year, if my eyes heal from the surgeries in time
Agh man, get well soon, always next year…there was some silly talk them moving it to Orl for the future but don’t see that happening,
Vegas has just too good of set-up in place and lets us con our ladies and kids into thinking its a family vacay (its not, well maybe for them lol)
Btw whatcha think of Myles man…..He did well for the Heat, I’ve heard about zero words on him from anybody, bit surprised hes a baller Imo on the min
Meyers Leonard? Hes a good floor spacing 5, good as a fit around certain defenders, and adequate defensively in certain areas/circumstances. Thought Milwaukee should have kept him. I could see the Lakers looking for the floor spacing big, for depth, but it depends how they feel about their young wings, and their summer league situation. They just have so many guys at the 5 already with Davis, Hachimura, Hayes, Lebron in other smallball lineups.
Orlando would be amazing for me; just a 3 hour drive lol, but j like Vegas as that center for the league destination. One of multiple reasons I dont want them to get a real team in Vegas, over other places I feel deserve it more/would be better for the league
Meyers yes lol, I call him Myles all the time
Yea looking for just a connecting piece that can shoot the 3 and play 10~15 mins a game
None of our 5’s can really do that. Hes a nice passer as well and gives intensity on the boards
I gotta lotta respect for Mason Plumleee but before the “incident” I thought Meyers could kinda be a Plumlee with a 3 which would be very very valuable in todays game
Just kinda shocked I haven’t heard a single peep from anyone this offseason bout him
Still floor spacing bigs out there, and it’s super early. Milwaukee was a spot for him, so he probably had to wait for the Brook Lopez situation. We just saw Bryant and Wagner sign, so those guys are starting to come off the board, so maybe he will get a look somewhere. Feels more like something that would happen after summer league though
The Lakers did pretty damn well this offseason all in all…
Trade Lewis to Detroit for cash considerations
Had to sign him. Plus he wants to stay. Good move. Lakers still do need a center ……
It’ll be interesting to see what the lakers do throughout the season.
Cause I’m sure players will either over preform or underperform and there will be trades in season.
However to start the year I’m guessing it’ll look something like
Dlo Reaves Bron Hachimura AD
Vincent Reddish Prince Vanderbilt Hayes
JHS Christie Lewis
Would like to see them get Boogie cousins for the vets min just as another back up big. My preseason guesses are Hayes does well. Lots of chemistry with Bron getting lobs and collecting rebounds. Prince will be a handy player but not going to be amazing. Many people will expect big things from Cam Reddish but I don’t think he will deliver. Same with Dlo he is just an average 3rd option but let’s them down abit to often.
I hate this. Why do GM’s just let the Lakers do this, why not make the Lakers pay him as much as you can make him get. He’s a good player. Why would San Antonio and Utah not handicap the Lakers as much as they could for as long as they could instead? Bruce Brown gets almost as much over 2 years as he gets over four.
Because if you offer Reaves 100m and the Lakers don’t match, you have Reaves for 100m. If San Antonio and Utah didn’t value him at that they’re not going to risk using all of their cap room to mess with the Lakers.