Austin Reaves Discussion: Overachiever Who Underachieved

I mean... 13/4/3 as a starter on nearly 46 (!!!)/52/88? That'll do.

 

Still 90% FTs despite the two misses

 

Austin Reaves: cerebral, hustling BALLER!

What a gem! Reminds me a lot a bald white guy we had last time we won a ring.

 

Reaves is the homie!

 

Austin Reaves is one of the greatest Lakers of all time, and nobody is going to convince me otherwise.

If we foolishly throw him into a trade as filler or cheap out on re-signing him, I am going to quit my job and dedicate all of my time to protesting the Lakers FO.

 

I like him better than Caruso. Yes, i said it

 

I like Caruso but Reaves is on a completely different level offensively.

 

It’s the hair, isn’t it?

 

yeah, the demographics and broad strokes carry a lot of the comparisons--they're both white perimeter players who played 4 years in college and don't "look the part" but are competitive, high iq, winning players. but as far as playing style and strengths and weaknesses, they're very different. austin's a below-average athlete with very high level offensive skill. caruso is an above average athlete who's pretty limited in terms of ballhandling and passing (and really anything that's not a drive or a standing three). caruso is the better on-ball defender.

as we've lamented over and over, the two of them could easily play together and bring different strengths to the table.

 

It would have been a perfect backcourt pairing

 

Reaves is more Danny Ainge 2.0 not Caruso 2.0 if we want to stick with caucasian comparisons only

 

i'm convinced that if reaves went to duke, he'd have been a lotto pick.

 

Possible.

I am still amazed how we/his agent navigated that whole undrafted thing... Sometime in the future I would love to know what went down.

 

my guess is nobody felt strongly enough about him to challenge the agent's wishes. for example, if the team interested in drafting him would have committed to the 2-year contract right out of the gate, i'm guessing the agent wouldn't have been able to push him to us.

 

He would have been picked early or mid second round but requested not to be, was my understanding.

 

yeah, i was wrong:

https://www.silverscreenandroll.com...2021-nba-draft-wanted-lakers-two-way-contract

apparently, we both offered him two-way contracts, and he asked that they not draft him so he could take ours. i remember now. and i remember thinking that's kind of a dangerous precedent for the nba.

i mean, sure, det could have drafted him and retained his rights even if he refused to sign with them, but you could be poisoning a relationship with an agency over a guy you didn't think was good enough to draft in the first round.

edit: well, i may be right in that had detroit told his agent he had a guaranteed deal, they might have backed off their request to go undrafted.

 

https://www.latimes.com/sports/news...ves-lakers-defeat-trail-blazers-sports-report

From Dan Woike: Sometimes it’s a quick look back over his shoulder before spinning back the other way. Other times it’s a fake with the ball or maybe with his head.

Whatever it is, the result, increasingly, has been the same – Austin Reaves figuring out a way to create enough space to make a play.

Borrowing from the playbooks of NBA greats like Hakeem Olajuwon on one possession and Steve Smith on the next (he even channeled a two-handed Charles Barkley dunk), Reaves’ offensive acumen has established himself as a consistent threat for the Lakers offense.

“Austin is just…he just loves to hoop,” Darvin Ham said. “Just a real versatile offensive player – he can do a ton of things on that end.”

In a game the team needed to win before they head out on a very difficult six-game trip, Reaves scored a season-high 22 in the Lakers’ 128-109 win against the Portland Trail Blazers.

LeBron James scored 31, Anthony Davis had 27, Thomas Bryant added 14 and Russell Westbrook ended the second and third quarters with buzzer-beathing threes as part of his 10 points.

For Reaves, it’s the eight time in the last nine games where he’s scored at least 10 points, and for Davis it’s his eighth-straight with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Thursday was the Lakers’ sixth win in their last eight games, giving them some momentum as they leave Thursday for their longest trip of the season with stops in Milwaukee, Washington D.C., Cleveland, Toronto, Philadelphia and Detroit.