Suggested FA Target: Austin Reaves

Couple of points.

- I don't think that even with a healthy Lebron the Lakers are a contender next year. They made a bunch of trade deadline moves that really helped them. The downside is that they have a bunch of important players who are now free agents. That includes Walker, Beasley, Russell, Brown, Schroeder, Reaves and Hachimura. Losing a good portion of those guys kills their chances. They also can't just pay market value for all those free agents unless they sign them to 1 year deals which I'd expect isn't too attractive to the free agents.

- If Lebron leaves they have to replace him. In two years Davis (assuming they want to retain him) and Reaves contracts would make it tough to bring in another high dollar guy. Under the new CBA, you have to plan for those things or you're stuck not being able to add anything other than minimum players to your roster.

- Here's a Mark Stein quote from yesterday:

'definitely be at least one team that presents Reaves with a contract offer that exceeds what the Lakers want to pay.'

-The Caruso situation was under the old CBA. This is a whole new world.

Laker's may end up matching it but I don't believe it's a sure thing.

 

BTW I think that Reaves "could" play PG but I don't think that it would make sense for the Rockets. They need a real PG with good floor vision to make everyone else's life easier.

 

Windhorst on Lakers' Austin Reaves: 'No Way They're Letting Him Walk' in Free Agency

"There's no way they're letting him walk," ESPN's Brian Windhorst said on his Hoop Collective podcast Sunday. "Because they absolutely had egg dripping from their chin on letting Alex Caruso walk. And Reaves, let's just be honest, he's their third-best player."

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...-hachimura-dangelo-russell-contract-extension

McMenamin: “And that’s why, no matter what happens from here on out for the rest of the Lakers’ postseason run, they’ve identified these two players in particular, you have to imagine Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves will be part of their future going forward.”

Woj: “Both restricted free agents, I don’t see any scenario where the Lakers would not match on both. They have to... They’ve proved themselves to be win-now players with LeBron and Anthony Davis on their timeline (and) these are both starting-level players... Again, they will match on those two. They just cannot let them leave.”

 

Disagree. The Lakers can pretty easily keep Hachimura, Reaves, and Schroder. Rui isn't getting more than an MLE-level offer, neither is Schroder, and Reaves' cap hit can't be more than the MLE next year either. That's $35M + $100M for LeBron, AD, Vanderbilt, Reaves, Schroder, Rui. Which leaves them ~$45M to play with under the second apron, which I assume is their limit. If they want to keep Walker and Russell with that (I wouldn't), they could and that's everybody who played competitive minutes for them in the playoffs.

You don't think with healthy LeBron they are even a contender? With at least the same team top 6, maybe more? I hate the Lakers, but come on. IMO with healthy LeBron they'd be up 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals right now after convincingly beating both the #2 seed and the Steph/Klay/Dray Warriors, without homecourt. They're in the final 4 with LeBron playing like he aged from 38 to 45 in the last couple months. If that's just the foot injury, they're probably 3rd favorite for the title next year.

Re: the new CBA, there are mixed incentives - yes, teams will be afraid of the second apron. But expensive teams will also be incentivized to re-sign players like Reaves to maintain the salary slot and trade in the future, since as a tax team they will have fewer opportunities to do any transactions other than trading out players for players paid less (exceptions, trade contract matching where they take on more money, buyouts will be impossible). Reaves is exactly the kind of guy they'd want to re-sign to give themselves any flexibility going forward.

 

Utah going to throw everything they have into the next Horny and pair him with Gradey Dick

It's definitely a good comp aside from just the goofy hair and being white. Horny was Sam Cassells favorite player.

Lakers don't typically let their token white boys go, though. Losing Caruso was hard on their fans, so Reeves makes up for it and they'll catch extra hell for letting him go too. Rambis, Mad Dog and Slava, Sasha. They love their token white players. Not letting Reeves go.

 

I was against this at first, but I am 100% on board, this guy is special.

DD

 

Nope. I don't think they are a contender next season. Things just broke right for them this playoff run. I also think they will lose many of their free agents.

It's not next years cap they have to worry about. It's year 3 of Reeve's deal. They will have to resign AD for huge money or they are going to be in the market for a new super star that season. Either way Reaves contract along with ADs will make it difficult to fill out their roster. Reaves is promising but if I can only afford 2 max guys then I'm not sure hrs a guy that I pay the max to.

 

Ok agree to disagree then on the Lakers chances. I think your view that these Lakers with a healthy LeBron aren’t contenders is pretty far out of the consensus, but it’s your opinion.

The cap stuff / new CBA I think you’re just mistaken on the implications. In Reaves’s year 3 the tax line will be roughly ~$195M, the second apron $212M. He’ll be making $36M. They will not be hamstrung by that contract and stopped from getting another star if LeBron is retired.

 

Here's the official numbers for the 2023 playoffs from the NBA site:


Guarding Ja
--------------

Matchup Minutes: Reaves: 6:10 Vanderbilt: 22:35

Partial Possessions: Reaves: 37.1 Vanderbilt: 119.5 ( so Vanderbilt guarded Ja much more in both possessions and time)

Points: Reaves: 19 pts 7/13 53.8% FG% 2/2 100% 3PT% Vanderbilt: 31 pts 12/25 48% FG% 4/10 40% 3PT% ( Pretty close but Morant was less efficient when guarded by Reaves)

Assists: Reaves: 6 Vanderbilt: 4

FT: Reaves: 3/4 75% Vanderbilt: 3/3 100% ( pretty even)

Guarding Curry ( I'm including Schroder too)
---------------------------------------------

Matchup Minutes: Reaves: 16:09 Vanderbilt: 13:27 Schroder: 26.55 ( Schroder spent the most time by far guarding Curry).

Partial Possessions: Reaves: 92.2 Vanderbilt: 72.3 Schroder: 141.2 ( Schroder guarded Curry for the most possessions).

Points: Reaves: 43 pts, 17/35 48.6% FG% 6/15 40% 3pt%
Vanderbilt: 12 pts, 5/12 41.7% FG% 2/5 40% 3pt%
Schroeder: 35 pts, 15/37 40.5% FG% 3/18 16.7% 3pt% ( It could have been just Curry missing shots but Schroder was the most effective guarding Curry)

Assists: Reaves: 8 Vanderbilt: 6 Schroder: 10

FT: Reaves: 3/3 100% Vanderbilt: 0/0 Schroder: 2/2

Overall, Reaves did fine.

 

The QA I read with Udoka, he said that he planned to take advantage of Sengun's passing but he didn't say that the entire offense would run through him.

Sengun turned the ball over a bunch but assuming that he cleans that up, the biggest issue will be that almost all of his assists come from him in the post. I'm assuming that we'll continue to utilize that but when he's in the post it kills the spacing and there's less driving lanes. If you're going to run the offense primarily through Sengun, then he's got to fix the turnovers and he's going to have to start getting assists from someplace other than in the paint.

Of course, if Harden truly is coming back to the Rockets, then Sengun won't be running the offense. Personally, I hope he doesn't because I don't want his contract on the books for the next 4 years.

 

As I said if Sengun is going to run the offense then he's going to have be able to get assists from out top too. Right now the vast majority of his assists come from the paint. Almost 100% of the corner 3 passes he made were from the post. That would have to change.

It's also dependent on who's the PG. If it's Harden then the offense would primarily run through him.

 

So you’re really comparing Reaves’s 37.9 possessions to Vanderbilt’s 119? It proves my point. They needed to slow Ja down so the turned to Vanderbilt. If Vando had better offense ( a serious shortcoming) he would even more Floor time vs Ja. You can bet he’s going to see more time on Murray now that he’s going nuts. I like Austin but he can’t slow down the elite guards in this league.

 

You’re really comparing him to Curry?

Wow.
We’ll agree to disagree about Austin’s defense and it don’t have anything to do with your weird & weak skin color argument either. Dude is just a passable defender. Vanderbilt impacted that Memphis series with his defense on Ja as much as Reaves did offensively. It’s a team game that helped the Lakers win.

 

I think the Lakers will match anything on Reaves. After the trade deadline moves, the expectation was that DLo would help initiate offense and make those timely buckets. Reaves has been far more important.

With Lebron and AD on the books they don't have many choices, they're not gonna have enough cap space to sign some superstar in free agency and maintain any semblance of a team.