Austin Reaves, the Los Angeles Lakers 27-year-old shooting guard, was one of three players singled out by the team’s president of basketball operations Ron Pelinka as “pillars” of the team, at Pelinka’s season-ending press briefing May 1. Considering that the other two were LeBron James and Luka DonÄiÄ, that’s pretty good company for a fourth-year player who signed with Los Angeles as an undrafted free agent in 2021.
The former Oklahoma Sooners star didn’t reach that lofty point without taking risks. His first was telling the Detroit Pistons not to draft him four years ago.
Learning that Detroit planned to take him in the second round and sign him to a two-way deal, Reaves and his agent gambled that he could find a team willing to give him a guaranteed roster spot instead.
That team turned out to be the Lakers, so Reaves’ gamble paid off.
Reaves Just Bet on Himself Again, in a Big Way
Now, Reaves just took another big gamble. According to reporting by Dan Woike, Lakers correspondent for The Athletic, the Arkansas native who since college has gone by the nickname “Hillbilly Kobe,” has now “formally declined a max extension with the Lakers this week that wouldâve paid him $89.2 million over the next four seasons.”
Reaves will enter the 2025-2026 season in the third season of the four-year, $53.8 million deal he signed with the Lakers before the 2023-2024 campaign. That sum represented a stunning return on Reaves’ earlier, draft-night bet on himself.
His current contract allows Reaves to opt out and hit the unrestricted free agent market after the upcoming season, a market in which, Reaves is now betting, he can command significantly more than the $89.2 million the Lakers are permitted to offer him.
That leaves Los Angeles two options: keep Reaves for what will likely be just one season, and build around the “pillars” through trades and free agent signings, in an all-out attempt to “go for it.” Or…
Trade him.
3 Possible Trade Destinations for Reaves
If the Lakers choose to part ways with Reaves, here are three possibilities for where he could end up, and what the Lakers could get back:
Utah Jazz â the Lakers are badly in need of a center, especially after dealing away future Hall of Famer Anthony Davis, who preferred to play power forward anyway, but was required to take over the five spot because Los Angeles simply didn’t have anyone else.
Walker Kessler at age 23 would give the storied franchise a young, and largely cost-controlled seven-foot rim protector who placed third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2023, and who has averaged 2.4 blocked shots over his 196 NBA games.
The Lakers are known to have shown strong interest in acquiring Kessler, and according to information from reporter Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune, they have actually had an offer on the table for Kessler since the in-season trade deadline.
Detroit Pistons â if they deal away Reaves, the Lakers could go in a different direction than a Kessler trade would represent, instead attempting to extract 23-year-old, 2022 first-round draft pick, No. 5 overall out of Purdue, Jaden Ivey.
But while Ivey would bring a dimension of explosiveness and speed that the Lakers do not get from Reaves, the younger player represents a defensive downgrade, and has tended to lag behind Reaves in shooting efficiency and quality shot selection.
Nonetheless, if the Lakers feel they must cut ties with Reaves, Ivey would be capable of filling his role alongside James and DonÄiÄ, even if he does not quite rise to “pillar” status.
Dallas Mavericks â Would the Lakers one again attempt to extract a star player from the Mavs, after the instantly-infamous DonÄiÄ deal? The Mavericks this week signed center Daniel Gafford to a three-year, $54 million extension, a contract that allows Gafford to be traded.
With eight-time All-Star guard Kyrie Irving expected to miss all, or at least most, of the upcoming season with knee surgery, Dallas needs a shooting guard to take his place, and to help get the ball to No. 1 overall draft pick Cooper Flagg.
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