Lakers News: How Austin Reaves Gained Respect Of LA Colleagues
Los Angeles Lakers reserve shooting guard Austin Reaves, suddenly a potential Sixth Man of the Year contender, has had an excellent last month or so of activity for LA.
Reaves discussed the way he has gained the appreciation and respect of his fellow Lakers of late.
"I don't know what to say. For him to accept me the way that he accepted me from day one," Reaves reflected. "Obviously I felt like there was a really good chemistry, IQ-wise, from day one. But not just him, everybody else. I mean, I think it was Dennis [Schroder] and Beas [Malik Beasley] throwing water on me on the court. Stuff like that means a lot to me."
James was effusive in his praise of Reaves following the 6'5" swingman's career-best scoring night against the Orlando Magic Sunday night, when he notched 35 points while shooting 9-of-14 from the field and 16-of-18 from the line to lead Los Angeles to a critical 110-105 victory. Reaves acknowledged the shout-out in his presser.
"Looking back in 20 years when hopefully I'm retired and playing golf every day, I can tell my kids or my grandkids that arguably the greatest player ever [shouted me out on] social media."
Across 54 games thus far this season, he's averaging 12.0 points on sparkling shooting splits of .518/.380/.854, 3.0 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 0.6 steals a night. He appears to be in line for a significant salary increase from his current minimum deal next summer in restricted free agency.
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