Austin Reaves Discussion: How Much Is He Worth?

I feel even better actually. Doesn’t change my stance one bit on my expecting AR to live up to what he’s getting paid now. Nice try though.

 

Windhorst made that number up. He was saying they offered him something like a 50% increase.

Most likely we started at 185m for 5 years and they started at 240m. We somehow got to offering only 4 years and they asked for the PO.

I’m sure his agents said we’re walking if it’s not the max - Detroit and Brooklyn are happy to offer it to us. We then relented.

It’s a fair negotiation and not much else we could offer done. But let’s not act like it isn’t about the money.

 

Based on what Austin actually did on the court last season, it’s wild to assume that he was going to take a low ball offer.
It’s also silly to believe any number the talking heads throw out there.

 

Yeah, don’t believe we opened at 30 lol; not for a second.

 

2026/27 salaries

T16 Donovan Mitchell $50,105,628
T16 Cade Cunningham $50,105,628
T16 Evan Mobley $50,105,628
T16 Jamal Murray $50,105,628
20 Trae Young $49,500,000
21 Jaren Jackson Jr $49,000,000
22 Zach Lavine $48,967,380
23 Pascal Siakam $48,924,624
T23 T. Haliburton $48,924,624
T23 Anthony Edwards $48,924,624
26 Lauri Markkanen $46,113,154
27 Domantas Sabonis $45,472,000
28 Kevin Durant $43,902,439
29 OG Anunoby $42,500,000
30 James Harden $42,317,307
31 Darius Garland $42,166,510
T31 Zion Williamson $42,166,510
T31 Ja Morant $42,166,510
T34 Scottie Barnes $41,754,636
T34 Franz Wagner $41,754,636
-> T36 Austin Reaves $41,250,000
T36 Chet Holmgren $41,250,000
T36 Paolo Banchero $41,250,000
T36 Jalen Williams $41,250,000
40 Michael Porter $40,806,150

He’s better than a lot of those players listed above him.
He was the 2nd most efficient scoring guard during the 2025/26 season, behind SGA, and above Curry.

He is not overpaid. Folks need to get a better grasp of the current market.
We got him for fair value. He can always be flipped as an asset.

 

Who would you take over Reaves in that list?

I think Cade, Mobley, Antman & Barnes are clearly all better.

After that most likely; Mitchell, Murray, Siakam, Haliburton, Sabonis, KD, OG, Franz, Chet, Paolo & Jalen Williams, I probably would take over Reaves.

However, I think Reaves is better than Trae Young, JJJ, Lavine, Markkanen (close), Harden (today's version), Garland, Zion, Morant, MPJ - which is a really cool thing to say for an undrafted home grown guy.

 

I agree with most of your take.

We first need to acknowledge that Mitchell, Cade, Murray, Young, Mobley, Lavine, Siakam, Antman and JJJ are paid $7-10M more than AR. They are basically in the Luka tier.

I'm not sure about Murray anymore after that stinker he laid in the playoffs.
Siakam and KD are too old. Sabonis is unproven in the playoffs. Jdub is hurt too often.
Not a fan of Paolo due to his inconsistency.

 

I'd take Siakam for sure, I've long coveted him as a player. I can't believe the Raptors had Siakam AND OG.

KD should continue to be a better player than Reaves the next 2-3 years. Which pains me to say because I really dislike him.

Sabonis peaked at a top 10 MVP player at Reaves' age. I think he is being highly underrated by the whole NBA market right now - he was a 20/14/8 guy when he was last healthy.

Don't like Paolo. I think he is fool's gold like Zion.

If JDub is better than Reaves, it's not by much, which is good news for us. But he is more of a two way player however.

 

Yeah. Thats bs. I suspect we tried to see where his head was at but no way we came in that low.

if that’s all we thought he was truly worth then we probably would have traded him.

 

I mean, someone could have started there as a way to get things moving and break the ice. How serious they were about it, is a different question.

 

guessing we presented the idea that if he took less, we might be able to do x/y/z, and his agent was like...that sounds like your problem. my guy has two max offers on the table right now from other teams.

 

Happy for Austin. It's nice to see hard work and the ultimate underdog story reach this place. Great story for the Lakers to find a guy in Arkansas and develop him all the way to being a max level player.

Sure, I would have liked for him to have taken a little less. $37m was where I wanted it to start, but there was a market for him. If he was being chased by multiple teams bringing the bag, there's no amount too high for us to keep him. Worse than overpaying him is losing him for nothing, even if he and Luka doesn't work and a year from now we have to move him, there will be a market for him.

He has to earn that new money now. He has put in tremendous work every off season and has improved every year, so there is no reason to believe he won't continue to bust his a** to get better. There's extra eyes and expectations now, I think he'll be ready for it though.


Also why is this from a few pages back not getting more attention

Love seeing our team conducting FA like a teenage girl (biting my tongue a bit for my pending Rob rant)



Disgraceful.

 

I thought that tweet was a parody. That actually happened?

 

Sadly, it's real.


And maybe that does appeal to the aw-shucks nature of Austin. But f*** that sounds pitiful from an organization. Sounds like the same playbook as the team who sat down with Aldridge. I would love to see the scribble pads of the Dodgers people that Walter has roaming the halls, seeing how everything is going.

"Country playlist?"


I wonder if we were at least tech savvy enough to share the QR code with Austin so he could take the playlist home with him.