Austin Reaves Discussion: How Much Is He Worth?

the number i keep seeing is 45, but i've also seen 54.

here's what we know for sure:

luka gets 50
vando gets 12
laravia gets 6
knecht gets 4
theiro gets 2

ayton and smart have POs at 8 and 6ish, respectively.

you must carry 14 players, and empty roster charges are 1.3. bronny technically gets 2.2, but is actually only guaranteed 1.3 (clever). so here, his salary slot can function as an empty roster charge.

the cap is projected at 166, tax at 202, apron 1 at 210. guessing only apron 1 is relevant to us, though i could see us staying under the tax itself in certain situations.

the big question is reaves's cap hold. it's basically either 21 or 27. i still think it's 21, but pincus is saying 27. it all depends on whether his 13.9m this year is above or below league average salary. projections i've seen have the average salary for the nba at 12.7 this year, which would make reaves's cap hold 150% (instead of 190%) of his 14m.

you probably want hayes's cap hold (about 7m), though you might not...

i'm not factoring kennard's cap hold, and i'm wondering if we've already told him he'll get the room mle if we operate under the cap (which i expect) or something close to it using his bird rights if we operate over it.

if it's 21, you have that plus the 74 guaranteed to the 5 players listed at top, so that's 95. but that's only six guys under contract, so you have 8x1.3, which we'll call 11 for empty roster charges. that's 106 (60m in room). let's drop one of those and keep hayes's cap hold, adding 6 million to the total. that gives you the 54 number.

all that assumes ayton and smart opt out. one or both could opt in (my money would be on ayton in, smart out). ayton opts in, you're down to 47 in room. smart opts in, you're down to 49. both opt in, you're down to 42.

none of the above mentions rui's or lebron's cap holds, which could bring us all the way back over the cap. why would that matter? it probably won't, but in a weird world where we could find a s&t for lebron that all parties liked, this could become a thing. i just don't think we sacrificed all this in order to go that route. it would mean we learned ahead of FA that like, nobody was going anywhere.

 

We will see…

 

Lakers will have at least 48 millions if LeBron is not going sign for another 50 + millions

Keith Smith
@KeithSmithNBA


Moves made at the NBA trade deadline vaporized a lot of 2026 potential cap space. Here are the teams I now project to have cap space this offseason:

1. Lakers: $48.2M
2. Nets: $45.7M
3. Bulls: $34.6 M


A more reasonable projection may be $54 million in cap room. However, the Lakers may look to deal their first-round pick, Dalton Knecht, Bronny James (to whatever team his father joins), and possibly Jarred Vanderbilt to maximize flexibility

 

No offense taken, I’m not an expert by any means. From what I can tell:

Luka: 49.8m
Reaves: 26.5m CAPHOLD (this could be 20.9m instead but Pincus quoted the larger number)
Vando: 12.4m
Ayton: 8.1m PLAYER OPTION
Jake: 6m
Smart: 5.4m PLAYER OPTION
Hayes: 4.9m CAPHOLD
Knecht 4.2m
Kobe Bufkin: 2.5m TEAM OPTION
Bronny: 2.3m
Adou: 2.1m
1x Incomplete Roster Charge: 1.4m
----
Total: 125.6m

Other Cap Holds:

Kennard: 13.2m CAPHOLD
Rui: 27.4m CAPHOLD

The cap is set at 166m - so we'd have about 40m incap space assuming we let Rui & Kennard walk fornothing - if we resign either that number drops.

I suppose we don’t need to include Hayes, Bronny (partial guarantee ) Bufkin, Ayton or Smart into our calculations and that would boost that number up. But I assume we’ll keep a big junk of those guys and try to build around the edges.