Lakers guard Austin Reaves essentially picked up where he left off on Monday following a three-game injury absence, registering 24 points, seven assists, and five rebounds across 29 minutes of action in a win over Charlotte. While he has only appeared in eight games so far, Reaves has maintained a scoring average exceeding 30 PPG and is boosting his value in a contract year.
As ESPN’s Dave McMenamin writes, Reaves and his camp turned down an extension offer from the Lakers during the summer, since L.A. is currently limited to offering about $87MM over four years. However, the 27-year-old expressed to McMenamin that he’d like to stick with the Lakers long-term and won’t necessarily be looking to extract every last dollar he can when he reaches free agency next summer.
“I’ve said it a million times. I want to be in L.A. I love it,” Reaves said. “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.”
Although Reaves has a player option for 2026/27, the expectation is that he’ll decline that option next summer in order to sign a new contract. Based on the NBA’s latest salary cap projections, he’d be eligible for a contract worth up to $240.7MM over five years with the Lakers or a four-year, $178.5MM deal with another team.
As McMenamin outlines, two of Reaves’ “contemporaries” at shooting guard, Tyler Herro and Jordan Poole, are on deals that pay them about 20% of the cap. A comparable contract for Reaves would start at $33MM — with 8% annual raises, that would be worth about $147.8MM over four years or $191.4MM over five.
Of course, with a handful of retooling teams projected to have cap room in 2026, it’s possible a rival suitor will make an aggressive offer that makes life difficult for the Lakers and complicates Reaves’ decision.
“AR’s a stud,” an Eastern Conference team executive told McMenamin. “If I were the Brooklyn Nets, I would throw all the money at him. He has shown when he gets the keys to the engine, he can produce.”
In addition to increasing his on-court production this fall, Reaves is developing a close friendship with Luka Doncic, McMenamin notes. That figures to make him all the more valuable to the Lakers, who are seeking long-term complementary pieces for their franchise player.
“They both realized that they both enjoy talking trash — a lot,” head coach JJ Redick said of his backcourt duo. “And their personalities in that regard are very similar. And so they can create a little bit of chemistry with each other just by being their natural selves.”
According to McMenamin, Redick has also encouraged Reaves to take on more of a leadership role with the team this season, and the former undrafted guard has responded well to that push.
“The biggest thing was him taking a step forward as a leader and recognizing that it’s as much his team as it is LeBron (James)‘ team or Luka’s team,” Redick told ESPN. “And acknowledging that he does have innate, natural leadership skills and being able to tap into those more consistently. I told him, he’s out of excuses. You’re no longer the undrafted guy who’s a young player. You’re one of the (main) guys now, and he’s been very responsive to that.”