Austin Reaves Discussion: Will He Stay Or Will He Go?

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.

 

I don't blame him but he goes for money

At some point soon, the Lakers need to build properly around Dončić. That means thinking beyond James and possibly Austin Reaves.

Outside of the Lakers' distant movable future first-round pick (2031 or 2032) and any first-round swaps they can offer, Reaves is their most attractive trade chip. The soon-to-be 27-year-old just averaged 20.2 points per game this past season, which is remarkable for an undrafted player.

Reaves is nearly sure to decline his $14.9 million player option for the 2026-27 season to explore unrestricted free agency next summer, seeking a salary in the $30 million starting range. The most he can extend for ($19.5 million) is far short of that number. Any team acquiring him would need behind-the-scenes assurances that he'd re-sign at a pre-arranged price, although they wouldn't be technically legal or binding.

 

Watch out for Hulk Reaves next season!

 

i think where i get stuck is...who's giving this to him? even though i'm a big fan and could argue his production gets near warranting it (not all the way there), and as evidence in another thread, i'm not a fan of mle-level players (the real value band is just over that, for a reason).

anyway, back to the point. this year, two teams have more than mle cap space. det at 24 million (unlikely to use it this way, i think) and bkn at 56. if bkn gave him the 40m (not possible this year), their foundation becomes reaves, nic claxton, cam johnson, and an mle-level player.

i suppose the heat and clips are reasonable threats next year (when reaves will be a FA), but i'm still wondering whether that's how they'd prioritize their cap space. iow, i think we'll be bidding against ourselves, mostly (remember nobody poison-pilled us when he could have been had at 25 per). for that reason, i don't like selling low for pieces like gafford because we're afraid of potentially overpaying in the future. we can probably s&t him at similar value if it comes to that, imo.

 

Yeah I don't know who would give him the kind of money either. My thought on him remains the same. I'm not in a rush to move him and I expect clearer opportunities to address the teams needs to pop up during the summer.

 

lol, my thoughts exactly. the next reaves/gafford rumor i hear...

 

In 2 years, 30m will be today's 20m with the new media rights. I could see quite a lot of teams take Reaves on for that 30m+ contract.

 

Maybe, maybe not. If the drop in people watching can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, you might see media rights going down. Then what?? We might be watching the players golden age going down the drain as we speak.

 

but will teams have space? the current trend is teams extending players and thus nobody having space except for a couple bottom dwellers each year. the league freaked out about players moving in FA and made it even more friendly for both teams and players to avoid it. add in the trade demand culture, and i think teams are just not that into hoarding space. and if they do, reaves isn't the prize on which they want to spend it, imo.

and i say this as a very big reaves fan.

 

Any drop in viewership will be offset by inflation anyway. Who remembers in the 90s being a millionaire was the equivalent of 10m in today's environment. That's just the reality, we won't have a monetary crunch because inflation is rampant.

There's a big difference in not alot of teams will have cap space, and no-one will have cap space. Reaves who will be a 20/5/5 guy as a third option will get an offer in the 30s when the cap is 220m. No doubt.

 

At the rate the salaries are being given, the league will implode, I don’t think that it’s sustainable.

 

Maybe this isn’t the best example, but unofficial inflation stats say 1 dollar in the late 90s is around 3 to 4 in today’s day depending on which unofficial data you follow.

So those max contracts at 12/13 million in 1998 are more likely the equivalent of 35-50 million in today’s currency. Inflations a funny thing like that.

 

i didn't get to it, but it's about timing. reaves is a FA next year, when the cap will be 170. and if a team shows up with 35 million per to offer him, we can offer him that and more, too.

i just don't get the fear of the overpay or losing him, tbh. certainly not enough to pre-emptively trade him for lesser talent.

the main fear i have is some team pulling a fvv thing and offering him huge money short term. again, though, not enough to trade him for the 17th best center in the league or something.

 

Only read this now but really agree with your point and never cimented this idea until you wrote it. Makes a ton of sense.

That's how you get into the "MPJ/Grant territory", a guy who's a bit above the role player status but below the star level. AR is in that territory. Very hard to trade those guys too

I think AR wouldn't mind too much a trade too, at least not as much as we might think. A team that gets him is "pressured" to re-sign him and is likely to be closer to the max than we would be.

AR trade value is at its peak this offseason, it should decrease as time passes so it makes sense to take advantage now too. I never thought I would be in this camp to be honest, but since our season ended that it's building up in my head

 

Next year is already talked about as a big FA year. I see a few teams targeting that offseason and something that always happens is "team A saves for player Z, but player Z signs for team B so team A overpays player X". AR can be that X

 

Austin would be perfect coming off the bench. However I won't blame him, for taking the most money,he's offered by someone else.

 

He probably doesn't want to be a sixth man. Tbh, he is too good for that. He could carry a team with the proper supporting cast.