Austin Reaves has made the rise from undrafted free agent to fan favorite on the Los Angeles Lakers and he has done it the hard way. Reaves has exhibited everything that a basketball fan loves to see in an NBA player as he has naturally become the most likeable player on the entire roster.
Reaves exploded for a career-high 35 points against the Orlando Magic on Sunday and after a performance like that, conversations about his future market value began. Reaves is a restricted free agent this summer and the fanbase will be outraged if the team does not bring him back.
Los Angeles can only sign Reaves to a four-year, $50.6 million contract. However, other teams can offer Reaves more thanks to the poison pill provision. Other teams can only pay him the value of the Mid-Level Exception in year one, but they can still increase the overall value of the contract.
Other teams can inflate the last two years as high as a max deal, which caps out as a four-year, $98.6 million contract. Reaves likely won’t get that much but could another team be willing to offer Reaves $23 million in year three and $25 million in year four to give him a four-year, $71.3 million contract.
All that being said, the Lakers have the ability to match a deal like this thanks to the Gilbert Arenas Provision, although things could get dicey.
The Lakers have to be smart with the contract they give Austin Reaves.
This is truly a unique situation for the Lake Show and one that they have to be prepared for. The team already let one fan favorite walk for nothing in Alex Caruso, the last thing that this fanbase wants is another fan favorite to walk.
Luckily, the team does have the benefit of Reaves being a lifelong Lakers fan, so he might be more willing to work more with the Lakers than a free agent with no connection to the franchise.
It might take some creativity for the Lakers. But there are some recent contracts the team can try and model Reaves’ after.
Lakers can give Austin Reaves the same contract as Talen Horton-Tucker
The Los Angeles Lakers have been down this path before and did so relatively recently. The team was facing a near-identical situation two summers ago with Talen Horton-Tucker, which is the same offseason in which the team let Alex Caruso walk for free.
Granted, there was not as much competition for THT as there could be for Reaves this offseason. THT was very much still an unfinished product and the Lakers were paying him based on his potential. That is not the case with Reaves, who definitely has more market value.
However, the length and the value of the contract could end up following the same format for the Lakers. Los Angeles used its Early Bird Rights (which it has to use to re-sign Reaves) to re-sign THT to a three-year, $30.78 million contract.
The value would be different for Reaves, though, as the value of the contract with Early Bird Rights is worth the Mid-Level Exception. The MLE is worth more now than when THT first signed his contract, so Reaves’ salary would be slightly more.
However, the structure can remain the same, and most importantly, the player option could remain the same. THT had two years guaranteed with the third season being a player option. This would give Reaves the ability to opt out of his contract and pursue another deal.
This is when his contract would have inflated anyway, so this would be an example of the Lakers giving Reaves the chance to get more money in those third and fourth years if he continues to play well.
Under this structure, Reaves would get a three-year, $36.7 million contract with a player option for the 2025-26 season.
The Lakers may have to give Austin Reaves a Tyler Johnson-style contract
Tyler Johnson is the best example of a player getting a payday as a restricted free agent only for his team to bring him back using the Gilbert Arenas Provision. Back in 2016, Johnson agreed to a four-year, $50 million contract with the Brooklyn Nets that the Miami Heat decided to match. That deal paid Johnson less than $6 million in years one and two but ballooned to $19.2 million in years three and four.
A $50 million contract may not seem too bad but it would be worth far more in today’s NBA now that the MLE is worth more. If another team signed Reaves to this exact type of deal with the same percentage increase, it would pay him $11.3 million in year one, $11.9 million in year two and would jump to the max in year three and four.
If another team likes Reaves as much as the Nets liked Johnson back in 2016 then they could sign him to a four-year, $98.6 million contract. As long as that team has the cap space to absorb it, they can take the average cap hit of the four years. So while Reaves is getting paid more at the end of the contract, the cap hit for all four seasons would be roughly $24.65 million.
The Lakers do not have the salary-cap space to absorb a $24.65 million hit after they bring in other impending free agents. Thus, they would have to take the year-by-year cap hit for Reaves. What does this mean?
This means that next season his cap hit will be $11.4, the following season it will be $11.9, then Reaves will balloon to a max cap hit in year three and four. Instead of paying him like a role player all four years, the Lakers would be paying him like a max player in years three and four.
Is that worth it if Reaves gets that kind of offer? That is for the Los Angeles Lakers to decide.