I'm biased in a way. As a Sooner, I've seen a lot of Reaves. I never would have dreamed he would perform at this level in the NBA... But he's doing it, and in high pressure games. He's also young. I'd be open to throwing a bag at him. I think he can be a fulltime pg, especially when sharing the ball handling with KPJ, Green (maybe Harden) and the distribution with Sengun.
Again his max is 4/99, half of what Harden is eligible for, it’s an easy contract to offer Reaves, and an easy one for the Lakers to match.
I do think there's something to using the cap to add young role players with upside. If I had to pick between spending $40M-$50M a year on Harden or spending maybe $30M-$40M a year on two of those three, I lean toward the latter. It's much easier to move guys like that on reasonable contracts and it doesn't exhaust their cap space for when a younger star comes along at a time when the Rockets are actually ready to compete.
He can’t defend PGs . Sorry and I watch a TON of Laker games. Russell and Reaves aren’t great defenders. When they need to slow a scoring PG down they use Schroder or Vanderbilt on to handle the job. Reaves can play, no doubt. He reminds me of Jeff Hornacek from the old Suns and Jazz squads. But he isn’t a full time PG and he isn’t a great Defender of the. PG position. The guy is an old school hooper who gets buckets but he is at his best at Jalen Greens position. It’s just what it is. If you want Austin, trade Jalen to Charlotte and draft Scoot. Then Max out Austin to come here. That way he can play his natural position. I like Reaves’s game & swagger, he’s fearless and can score, but I’d rather have Jalen.
my understanding is that the Lakers can only offer 4-yrs/$50 mil. No way I’d pay Reaves $25 mil per, but we could offer Reaves $18 per and the Lakers couldn’t match that. can anyone confirm that the Lake-show can only offer 4ys/$50mil?
The lakers can only offer him that but can match a max contract, Gilbert Arenas rule it will be heavily backloaded
I would definitely hit him with a big offer sheet, but it's LA and they are swimming in cash and don't care about spending in the luxury tax, so I'd expect them to match after the performance he's shown during these playoffs. I mean, we should still do it if nobody else is going to, because F the Lakers and we should totally make them pay up to ruin their flexibility moving forward, but don't expect to actually get him.
I agree. He’s a nice player but not worth the money he’s going to command. And I agree with a previous poster he’s not that great of a defender. He does a lot of flopping too.
Horny did is best work off ball as a secondary ball handler/ Scorer. Austin like Hornacek would be a very valuable piece in building a winner with the right guard pairing.
Let me clarify Reaves contract situation a bit. First keep in mind that the new CBA which kicks in in July, imposes severe penalties for exceeding the new "second tax threshold". These aren't just financial penalties, but rather restrictions on the roster moves that you're allowed to make. For example, instead of being able to take back more than you send out in a trade, you can only take back what you send out. Also, you can't sign buy out players. If you repeat offend, one of your first round picks automatically goes to the bottom of the first round regardless of your record. These new rules will make it almost impossible to acquire players if you're over the 2nd threshold. The thought is that it will be difficult for teams to have more than two max contracts on a roster and still stay below the new line. That's why you see the predictions of teams like GSW, LAC and PHO trying to move some high priced contracts to comply with the rule. The new rule is being phased in partially next season and then in full the following year. Basically it will make it almost impossible to exceed the 2nd threshold no matter how rich the owner is. Reaves is a 2nd round pick and the Lakers have Early Bird Rights on him. The most they can offer him is 4 years//~$50M. Since Reaves was a 2nd round pick, the Arenas provision applies. That provision prevents teams from being able to offer a contract that the current team is unable to match. The Arenas provision restricts the first two years of the offer sheet to the MLE amount (with a 5% raise) but the final two years of the offer sheet are unimited. That means that the max a team with cap space (need around $25M in this case) can offer a deal like this: Year 1: $11.37M (MLE) Year 2: $11.95M (MLE + 5%) Year 3: $36.85M ( Max for Reaves experience level) Year 4: $38.51 (5% raise from year 3). That's 4yrs/$98.5M and the Lakers are allowed to match. One other catch is that for the team giving the offer sheet, that $98.5M contract hits the cap at the yearly average ( ~$24.6M). For the Lakers, it hits just as shown above $11.4 M, $11.96M, $36.85M and $38.5M. The $36M and $38M salary in the final two years of the deal could really hurt for the Lakers. The new CBA makes it difficult to have more than two max deal and to the Lakers, Reaves becomes a max player in year 3 and 4. The Lakers could match but they also may not. They've got quite a few free agents this off season so they're going to have to commit money to them or spend money to go get replacements. Of course Lebron's deal expires next season and he may go try to catch on with whomever drafts Bronny. Who knows. So, the Lakers could match but it's not a sure thing like it was under the expiring CBA. This contract situation is similar to the offer sheets that Morey gave to get Lin and Asik.
This is a good summary. But I disagree with the conclusion. The Lakers will be matching any offer sheet up to Reaves' max with 100% certainty. There are number of reasons (including their mistake with Caruso recently). But most importantly: - He's their 3rd best player on a team making a WCF run - LeBron is either seriously hobbled by his foot injury right now, or old age has hit him like a truck. If it's the former, they should keep Reaves because they would be a top 2 or 3 championship favorite next year with healthy LeBron. If LeBron is just old, then the Lakers won't care about the spike in Reaves' 3rd year salary (because LeBron will be 41 and probably retired) Personally, I think Reaves has almost played *too* well this playoffs to make himself maximum money. I doubt any team thinks there's a chance the Lakers don't match, so maybe nobody makes him that max offer sheet at all, which means he's stuck at the 51/4 the Lakers offer him. (The Arenas provision creates weird incentives like that, and kind of sucks imo).
Even if you expect the Lakers to match, shouldn’t you make the offer anyway just to lock the Lakers into that max salary in year 3/4?
