Austin Reaves Discussion: Overachiever Who Underachieved

The super max will be 70m+ during his next contract, I think from that lens 30m would be fair for Reaves. And if the Lakers don't want to pay that, maybe they have to trade him before some bottom dweller offers him that 30m+ per year contract you don't think he could get.

 

I'm just being pragmatic about the big picture. I want to keep Rui and Austin, but I don't won't to overpay them either. If we did that, we are going to have to trade them anyway. It's going to be similar to a Kcp/Kuz scenario, pay them in order to trade them.

Finney-Smith has an opt out this summer, nobody talks about it, but Rui is in the same expiring contract situation, as Gabe and Kleber, next season. Luka is up for a big extension this summer. Then of course there is Lebron's extension.

Take James off the table, and we don't have a legit contender, with Austin, Rui and Luka as our top 3 players. Factor in these pay raises, and Lebron's retirement, doesn't leave all this anticipated cap space. How are we going to improve the team, post James?

I'd rather keep them in the 25M and below range, and bring both off the bench. That would instantly give us one of the best bench units in the League.

I would be looking to move anybody else it took, to get another impact player through trade now, while we still have LeBron. It's possible that could be a big, but Im inclined to think, that Rob will be looking at a guard or wing.



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I think we'd all like to keep Austin at 25m. But, it's not likely. When we look at the facts, he is eligible for an extension at 22m per - if all he wanted was the 25m, he'd just take the extension for the guarantee. So I think he is gunning for that 30-40m per year for 4-5 years contract. I have serious doubts on whether I'd want to do that.

Personally, I don't like paying semi stars, I believe it's a bad use of resources as they are the least valuable contract. Value wise, it goes:

• rookie contracts (any rookie that becomes a top 20 player)
• modest first extension contracts (when a player breaks out after their first extension and becomes a star - Austin's current contract)
• vet mins that are ring chasing or have developed unexpectedly (David West, Shane Battier, Gary Trent Jr as ring chaser examples, or Keon Ellis or Camara that developed unexpectedly)
• and true superstars on max contracts (not supermaxes)
  
• outperforming MLE contracts

To build a real winner under this CBA you need a lot of value contracts. I'd rather have 2-3 MLE quality rotation players instead of a sub-star contract that I think is bad value.