Lakers News: Latest On Austin Reaves’ Impending Restricted Free Agency
Upstart Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard Austin Reaves has proven that his intriguing 2021-2022 rookie season was no fluke.
Per Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, the Lakers need to tender a $2.2 million qualifying offer to make Reaves a restricted free agent this summer, which would give them the opportunity to match any salary tendered to him by a rival team. LA could offer him an annual deal worth up to $11.4 million.
Shelburne adds that a team with more room under the salary cap (i.e. a tanking club with lots of rookie scale deals) could present Reaves with a long-term deal that starts at the $11.4 million number but increases to something in the range of $18.5 million in the last two years, the kind of "poison pill" deal that ultimately convinced the New York Knicks to let Jeremy Lin leave for Houston as an restricted free agent in the summer of 2012.
Whatever happens, Shelburne notes that Reaves is excited to earn his raise this summer.
"I think about it quite a bit, honestly," Reaves said. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't, just because, I've played basketball for so long and in college, there wasn't an NIL [Name, Image and Likeness] deal, so I was basically playing for free. You get your school paid for, but I wasn't that interested in school. So just to see and have the opportunity for all the times that I've questioned basketball -- even in high school, like, 'Am I ever going to get a Division I offer?' When I'm at Wichita State, 'Am I going to get an increased role?' Really getting to a place here I can be myself, it means a lot that, all the time that I put in that it's coming to the top now."
A Western Conference front office executive told Shelburne that Reaves could hold appeal for "literally every team in the league."
"I would love to be here my whole career," Reaves noted of his future in LA. "Just the way that the fans treat me, the love they have for me, as an undrafted player, it's kind of like they raised me type of vibe. ... It feels like it's meant to be. It feels like this all happened for a reason and this is where I should be."
Across six playoff contests with LA in its successful first round series win against the Grizzlies, the 6'5" swingman is averaging 16.5 points on .447/.344/.833 shooting splits, 5.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 0.7 steals and 0.5 blocks.
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