Austin Reaves Discussion: Will He Stay Or Will He Go?

Carry a team to what? Austin's really good, but I don't know that he's that good. The Ringer has him as the 44th best player in the league. I think that's about right tbh.

 

His style of play is consistent with the type of player that is the focal point of a team. He is a light version of those Harden/SGA type players. He's an adept foul baiter and a creative passer, while having sufficient shooting abilities for a PG/SG. His style of play is best suited as being the sun with the planets rotating around him. He dribbles the ball into the paint, and when he commands attention, he makes the right decision with the ball and is able to score, get fouled, or pass it to open shooters. That's his game. I knew that since he was at Oklahoma. But everybody wants to pigeon hole him into a "shooter" role or something for some reason. He's a natural high usage guy.

 

You put him on the Wizards and he probably averages 30 and 8.

 

Somewhere around there if not actually 30 PPG .... while he goes out of his mind on a losing culture team .... unlike Kuz.




He's actually a lite version of Luka himself .... moreso than Harden or SGA.

 

I think that means nothing because they would be a losing team. It's all about who's around you.
AR is great offensively around Luka/AD and Bron because the best POA defender is in one (or 2) of those guys. And he is the 3rd guy coming in the scouting report. If AR has always the best defender on him, receives double teams and has the other team preparing the game defensively to minimize him, he will suffer.
I don't think he has the burst to lead a team to success. He also lacks the stamina to have such a high usage as we already saw a few times.

It's definitely not a knock on him, he's an amazing player. But I don't agree with that take.

 

i don't know...what if reaves got the usage of a jalen brunson and a whole team built to cover for him defensively and happy to set screens for him? i'm not positive that team couldn't win. like if the hornets traded for reaves and committed to him?

i tend to agree that if he's your best player, you're not a good team but i do think brunson opened my eyes to what can happen when guys who are skilled, tough, and competitive are centered in an organization.

anyway, someone said they agreed reaves is about the 45th best player in the nba. well, the salary band for guys like that is about 35m per right now. if we have to pay that much to keep him, i'm good with it.

again, the moment we traded him for a non-top-50 player, we would begin our search for a top 30-50 player again, right?

so yeah, unless someone's offering a top-30 guy in his prime, i think i'm hanging up the phone.

 

I think the dilemma is that right now we have a Top 5 guy (and that's conservative, I think we agree Luka is Top 2 when he's right), another Top 10-15 guy and then a Top 40-45 guy that's maybe not the greatest fit with the other two. So I think it's fair to say that trading Reaves for another top 50 guy, or maybe two Top 75 guys, that are less talented individually but more complimentary would make the team better in the short term. Problem is that the Top 10-15 guy is 40 and might only be around for 1 more season. Once he's gone, the best way to acquire another Top 10-15 guy will probably be to send out Reaves in the trade. I know 2027 is supposed to be a big free agent class, but a lot of those guys will sign extensions. Shai can sign one this summer I think that will eventually pay him like $75 million a year. Why wouldn't he just sign that and force his way out later.

It all circles back to how aggressive the team wants to be while LeBron is still around. If we think next year with LeBron is going to be our best shot at a title for the next few years, I think it makes sense to trade Reaves this offseason. But if you think we won't be able to get there in one summer, the patient route of extending Reaves, letting the last year or two with LeBron play out and then either re-orienting around Luka + Reaves or Luka + player we acquire using Reaves makes more sense. I've been solidly in the former camp but am trending toward the latter a bit.

 

So MUCH this!! Some of these all world offensive high salaried guys who run the offense (mostly PGs) are no better and even worse in some cases trying to stay in front of other all world PGs. "well .... they're more athletic and quicker so maybe they're a little better at staying in front" Yeah "maybe" but also "likely" with Austin being nearly 6'6" and having a strong base ... those speedy little guys aren't doing nearly the job AR does guarding players even bigger than himself. Gabe is a perfect example of a strong, shorter, bit quicker guard that has a better chance more often of staying closer to the speed merchants, same with Schroder ..... that can't do what AR does against bigger players.

And definitely this!! @Kobeluka99 was trying to make the case for "contract year" Deandre Ayton who already got the BIG Bucks early in his career and then disappointed. AR's whole career has almost been about flipping the bird to all those who said he never could reach this level and look at the level he has taken it too just burning on that motivation with belief in himself, plus love of the game of course. Now AR .... an already "HIM" type alpha personality and big moments player finally has his FIRST opportunity to prove HE too deserves the same kind of much Bigger Bucks in HIS first real "contract" year. No effing way the Lakers don't NEED to see what this year's version of Reaves looks like and then evaluate that NEW equation and make their decisions going forward.

 

I mentioned that and the salary bands for the 2nd and 3rd options. If he sees himself as a good second option, he probably pushes for the max, if he sees himself as a good 3rd option, he probably settles for 30-40m.

But what if we're best set on winning with him as a 6th man - until Lebron retires in a season or two. I don't know how he takes that.

 

I think about this alot, I don't want to have a pseudo star on a star contract like MPJ. I do worry that could happen in this instance, and it's a problem for a lot of teams, what happens when a really good player demands a max? The NBA doesn't have a culture of having many players sign effectively between that MLE and Max territory for fair value.

But AR does present value at 30-40m to me. That's going to be about 1/7th of the first apron. If the cap goes up another 10% after next year to 215m for 1st Apron and 230m for the second Apron, I think we could break it down like this when Lebron retires:

1st - Luka (Max): 30% of cap - 64m
2nd - AR: 17.5% of cap - 37m
3rd - Center 12%. - 26m
4th - Rui: 10% - 22m
5th - Starter: 8.5% - 18m
6th - Man: 8.5% - 18m
7th - DFS: 6.5% - 14m
8th - TPMLE: 3.3% - 7m
9th-14th: Minimums - 15m

221 million

It comes down to, do you believe AR can be an effective 2nd option? And do you believe the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th guys can be an effective team around Luka & AR?

I think Rui is a good tertiary scorer with his ability to hit the midrange, finish and hit the 3. We'd need a defensive center thats a lob threat and a good defender that can guard 1-3 as the 5th starter. The 6th man I'd like to have as a strong 3&D guy as well. You've got DFS that's a strong team defender and can hit the 3. For the TPMLE, it would be nice to have someone that could put up points off the bench.

 

i think if luka is your first option, AR is good enough to be your second. this is where the strength of your #1 matters, imo. the key then is putting defenders around them. i really feel like even after lebron retires, we have a good foundation to build upon, which is wild, as i was pretty sure we were going to be struggling for a bit as recently as january.

now, is my real vision AR as ginobili, with some unnamed big man added as an equal-billed offensive option to reaves? yes. but i think if you have those two in the fold, you can use other assets to get that guy.

 

Really helpful post, as I don't know much about all the financials and apron stuff. Based on the chatter here and in the news seems the minimums next year could be Bronny, Goodwin, Koloko, 2025 pick, 2 ringchasers.

I'm in the keep AR camp especially in a contract year. Based on the rescinded trade seems Rob wants to use Knecht to trade for a big. I'd really want this to happen over the summer. So for me, that means other centers on rookie deals like Kessler, Duren, or could we even revisit the Williams trade without the 1st round pick attached.

That would leave Gabe, Vando and Kleber. I think of the 3 we could use wind depth and big man depth so maybe Gabe is the most likely to go. If we don't use Knecht in another trade for a young big, I wonder if Dallas would take Gabe (with Kyrie out) and Knecht for PJ Washington, which helps with 3-D and the athleticism? He could start and Rui could become the bench scoring punch. We'd still need to find a starting centre in that scenario.

 

I like that under the radar PJ Washington move. Not sure how much Dallas likes Hardy tho, as that would give 2 very short PGs. But it's a nice proposal, imo

 

I think AR probably stays. Someone was saying maybe we use him in the Brunsen/Kyrie role to Luka and trade him at the deadline if needed, or trade him later after signing him. This makes sense in theory, because he is a secondary ball handler and shot creator, that could shoot really well. The only difference is he is obviously bigger, which is again, positive in theory. We are always complaining about small players, but maybe those other two guys could keep up with opposing point guards easier, due to better quickness. Sure, they may get torched by bigger players, but maybe they could keep up with the diminutive ones better than AR can? It's yet to be seen. But hopefully it works out. Maybe NAW or somebody else is our point-guard sized version of Jones Jr? So maybe it works out i that respect.

 

all things equal, bigger is better. defensively, i think even if reaves has to guard pgs, he's better than brunson or kyrie, tbh. all three are going to get torched by deaaron fox in isolation, so might as well have the guy who can switch onto bigger guys and has longer arms for the passing lanes.

we need to add a defensive perimeter guy to mix and match with our big three. gs won't let him go, but gpII is definitely the guy. well, caruso is THE guy. but...whatever...

NAW is also a great answer here--the beauty is that our perimeter defender doesn't ALSO have to be a great ballhandler, because we have lebron, luka, and reaves to handle it if he gets pressured. so we can think outside the box a bit--like we did when we won our last ring...

 

Sure we can. But it's nice that we have a template to use for Luka's former successful teams. I know the search for a lob threat big might be more about making Luka happy though as oppose to trying to duplicate former Mavs teams, but it doesn't hurt to maximize that. But it does make sense to also have a 3 and D POA defender (player X instead of Jones Jr) and shooters (Lebron as PJ, etc.) .

 

Speculation is that the C Bags would have to attach an asset to dump Holiday's contract, any chance they take Gabe/Kleber/Vando for him? Vando would obviously be the hang-up as he has three years left, but I think he could actually look good there. Holiday looked pretty shaky offensively this year, but I thought the defense was still pretty damn good.

 

well, it's probably a third team that's taking our guys in any holiday deal. and the holiday concern is that his contract is hanging over your head for a good chunk of luka's prime. if he dips like a lot of guards (and the slippage has already begun), it could really hamstring the lebron transition.

we needed to get him two years ago. we need to get whatever version of him shakes loose in the kd/giannis stuff this summer.

 

the big question is if a team with Luka + AR (making close to max), two net-negative defenders can win in the current state of the NBA, or would it be better to spend that salary on 3&D guys to surround Luka with.

this is a very legitimate question, and I'm really unsure about it.