A few nights ago, Austin Reaves gave the Los Angeles Lakers a spark to defeat the Orlando Magic in another crucial game for the LA team, scoring a career-high 35 points to go along with 6 rebound, 6 assists and a few crazy and-ones.
This is hardly surprising as the 6’5 guard has established himself throughout the course of the season as a key component for Darvin Ham’s rotation.
Undrafted in the 2021 NBA Draft, Reaves reached an agreement with the purple and gold immediately that same night, later signing a two-year contract. Before training camp started that contract had already been converted to standard one. What the Lakers had seen in Summer League was enough to assure them that what they had was a diamond in the rough and the undrafted guard could immediately become a useful rotation piece.
They were right. If we take a look at the 2021 draft, it is hard to find players outside of the top 10 who are performing better than Reaves and, most importantly, impacting winning on their respective teams as much as he does.
Austin Reaves came to the Lakers at the perfect time.
Once in LA, thanks to his immediate performance and contribution, the former Oklahoma Sooner was unwittingly elected the replacement of a fan-favorite player who had been unceremoniously let go despite his success with the team and the willingness to remain in purple and gold: Alex Caruso.
Stepping up in the place left vacant by Caruso’s departure, Reaves showed flashes of great things to come. As a matter of fact, we can clearly say that he is in fact an improvement over his predecessor.
Without taking any shot at Caruso, who remains a great specialist. Every Lakers fan, including the author of this post, wishes he had stayed in Los Angeles, Austin has proven himself a versatile player on both ends of the floor, becoming a key member of the Lakers team, especially this post-trade deadline incarnation.
Reaves combines a solid defensive presence (maybe not as good as Caruso’s but still highly competent), with remarkable skills and talent on the offensive end.
The ability to play positions 1 through 3, run the team as the main initiator and facilitate for his teammates, knock down threes, and finish around the rim through contact make him a productive player and an outstanding playmaker. It is not by chance that we are seeing the closing lineups feature the young kid more and more.
Reaves’ numbers have already made a jump from his rookie year, going from 7.3 points and 1.8 assists per game to 12 and 2.9 shooting 38% from three, with just a slight increase in minutes played.
He currently holds an incredible true shooting percentage of 67.3%, good for sixth in the league and one of the only three non-big men (the others being Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry) in the top 10. His offensive rating of 126.6 is 13th in the league, while his net rating is at +5.6. Also, his win share and box plus/minus numbers are all positive, despite playing on an LA team that has struggled for most of the season.
Since the All-Star break, when the Lakers finally went all about business building some chemistry with the new acquisitions, Austin’s offensive rating has skyrocketed to 137, while the defensive rating has dipped to 113. His plus/minus has also greatly improved from +1.6 to +6.6. All the while his usage rate significantly increased.
When Russell Westbrook, a candidate for Sixth Man of the Year, was traded away at the deadline, Reaves inherited the role and task of leading the Lakers’ second unit (which is having tremendous success), proving himself worthy to also take Westbrook’s place in crunch time.
From undrafted, Reaves has rapidly established himself as a legitimate NBA player and a fundamental rotation piece for the (hopefully) contending Lakers. His current skills and impact show promise of further development into something even better. Great news for the Lakers.
What is not so great is the fact that he is going to be a free agent this summer, and his talent and promise will command much more money than he is currently earning. Rob Pelinka and the front office must do everything they can to re-sign the 24-year-old. Reaves is a player the Lakers cannot afford to lose.
Another “Caruso situation” is to be avoided at any cost.