Austin Reaves Discussion: How Much Is He Worth?

yep, even though we can keep him around for a year with a big contract, due to the cap hold rule, giving him the max or close to it, would quickly turn his contract into a liability for the franchise.

it's a difficult choice to make and I got attacked a lot on this forum for saying it, but I don't think we can win with AR as our #2 guy, especially when our #1 is also a guard who doesn't defend, and now having a history of choking in the playoffs.

I think he'd be much more suited for a tank commander star role in a bad team like a Trae Young.

 

Take a red eye to Germany or this is over in 3.

 

stop rushing AR - he needs to make the open 1's.

Man, that wide open 3 he bricked turned the game- it would have brought the Lakers within 3 and all the momentum. Bricked it and OKC hit a 3 and boom they went up 9 game over

 

Tough game for Reaves. He has improved defensively this year, but none of that means anything if he can't be a 20+ scorer in the playoffs.

 

I know he had a month off, is not healthy, and is rusty BUT whoa!

If he's not the 3rd or 4th best player in the series, this is over even sooner than the short lived series I expected.

 

OKC is the worst possible matchup for him, he was/is injured (again) but if he sucks in the playoffs (again)... i don't know man.

 

Been saying the same thing for 3 years .He’s just not a number 2 guy come playoff time.The Lakers would have to be OKC deep to have him as a number 2

 

meh: he's out of shape and his shot takes time to come back typically. Tough matchup for him to come back to

 

reaves isn't a guy who can elevate his game when it matters most and be a legit #2 to luka. if they plan on keeping him, they're going to have to find a way to acquire someone be a "2-B"

if you're going to be successful in the playoffs, you're going to have to deal with physicality, and reaves has not shown he's capable of that

 

Yeah he's not helping himself playing hurt 2 years in a row. I'm not buying the 3rd option BS but the bad rap is justified when the team can't rely on you to be 100% when it matters most. Same goes for Luka. We've been on this roller coaster since AD joined the Lakers. Seems like we're cursed at this point.

 

Luck is part of it but starting to take the regular season seriously in mid-Feb/early March is part of the pb . Too many minutes played for seed purposes .

Better depth and mentality are needed ( JJ will need to be better on the minutes management front too)

I agree this is the biggest worry going forward .

Luka has not been healthy for 3 postseasons in a row and Austin for two

 

I love AR but…

1. He’s not a max player on a good team
2. He’s not a #2 option on a contender

Proud of him for playing hurt and for getting shots up last night. Hoping he can bounce back this series but we are so overmatched and the matchup is abysmal for him (and really, everyone).

 

Yeah, I'm not ready to make a judgment until after the season is concluded; I know where I'd like his salary to be and where I view him in the pecking order of things; this series probably won't change that fan and further cement my view on that that I've had since the beginning of the season.

He'll play better, he can't play much worse. Throw this game in the toilet and move on.

 

He’s very skilled,that’s what makes him a good player.His lack of quickness,strength and athleticism will always have a light shown on it during the playoffs when games get much more physical

 

1. When he doesn't get the FT calls and you play aggressive with him, his gameplay suffers drastically.
2. He's got some very bad shot selection at times heaving up 3's
3. Average-Below average defense
4. Goes out of control in attacking the paint sometimes

We might have overrated Reaves here and his ability to play as a 2nd option player. He's a good player but as others have stated, he's more like a 2B-3 kinda player. You need someone in that 2A spot who is more reliable.

Every bad game Reaves plays is costing him $2-3m per year. Lakers and I'm sure other teams who can offer him a strong contract are watching this series for sure... If AR doesn't turn up, he might be getting that $30m range.

Without Luka, Lakers need Reaves to be a 25-30 PPG player... I know he's coming back from an injury but Reaves has always played bad against Rockets and OKC... and those two teams aren't going away. If he had played his consistent game, this would have gone down to the wire against OKC... If he played above his regular play, Lakers would have won. This was the Lakers chance to steal one and Reaves came up extremely short.

A sign-and-trade is on the table if I am the Lakers...

 

lot of kneejerking about a guy coming off an injury (that probably isn't fully healed).

if luka does come back in this series, he's not going to look like himself, either.

nothing i've seen in the last few games has changed my opinion on reaves as a player. if he's not a #2, then there aren't many of them in the league. #2s get paid and aren't easy to find via trade or FA. you basically have to draft them. we draft at #25 this year and likely will be there for the foreseeable future.

only way i'm trading reaves is for someone who is legitimately ahead of him in terms of production.

 

Austin has never had a single solid series in the playoffs. Regular season performance means jack.

 

Completely agree. Austin is something like the 30-35th best player in the league. His peers are not guys like Mitchell, Maxey, and Brunson, who are #1s on good teams but would clearly be a great #2 on a championship team. His peers are not guys like Jalen Brown or Jamal Murray, who've already proven that they're #2s on championship teams. His peers are guys like Markkanen, Derrick White, Fox, LaMelo, Franz, those caliber of players. The fringe All-Stars. I think if you just substituted one of those guys' names in for Austin's, everyone would be on the same page. I don't think anyone would be saying we have our #2 for the Luka era here in Lauri Markkanen or Franz Wagner. We'd be saying its great that we have Lauri Markkanen or Franz Wagner, they're really good players, but we probably need another guy around their level because they're fringe All-Stars.

Austin is not the Pau to Luka's Kobe, as much as some folks want him to be.

 

Even people who go on about the Luka+Kyrie finals formula leave out the fact that Kyrie is/was a much better player, and a proven playoff performer.