With great power – or a great contract – comes great responsibility.
(Yeah, I know. I stole most of that line from the comics page. But it fits.)
The point? The pressure is on the Lakers’ Austin Reaves, once his four-year, $185 million contract becomes official. The guy who basically rose from the ranks of the undrafted, made the team, and became a fan favorite and then a critical piece of the organization’s plans, now will feel the weight of expectations as Luka Doncic’s backcourt running mate.
How Reaves handles those expectations will determine whether this was worth it. And, contrary to some who might pick out a few subpar playoff performances and suggest that maybe he hasn’t earned this status yet, I suspect Reaves will respond by raising his game even further.
So now it’s on President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka, and his rapidly expanding staff thanks to the new ownership of Dodgers boss Mark Walter, to create the supporting cast around Doncic, Reaves, and – maybe – LeBron James that will make a championship parade possible in June.
Remember those, Laker fans? Remember how good it felt? Did you pay attention to the New York Knicks’ trip down Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes earlier this month? Were you not just a little bit envious?
You were? Good. That’s how you should feel as a Laker fan.
This is an organization for whom NBA championships have consistently been the only goal that matter, even before the takeover by an ownership that has created that same attitude and expectation with the Dodgers.
So half-measures will not do. The big city franchise needs to be playing for banners, period. And to get there, or at least to get back to the Finals and give themselves a chance, there will need to be some changes.
For sure, this will be a little more complex than the method that Walter and Guggenheim Baseball have used to bolster the roster after the Dodgers’ World Series championships – and, given Edwin Diaz’s presence on the injured list and Kyle Tucker’s struggles over the first part of this season, that process isn’t always foolproof.
Then again, Walter might find it instructive to deal with a salary cap that becomes more punitive the more you spend, though the odds are still against baseball’s Players Association giving in and accepting the salary cap that so many MLB owners want so desperately.
Keep in mind that the NBA instituted the first modern salary cap in sports in March of 1983, a compromise between then-commissioner Lawrence O’Brien and NBA Players Association director Larry Fleisher at a point when several franchises were in danger of going out of business.
Interestingly, that wasn’t even the first such cap in American professional sports. The Basketball Association of America, the forerunner of what would become the NBA, had a hard cap of $55,000 per team in its first season, 1946-47. That would translate to $945,218.72 per team in today’s dollars, which is around $200,000 more than Reaves made on his first two-way contract in 2021 as an undrafted rookie. Today’s minimum rookie salary is $1.36 million.
All of which is, admittedly, a convoluted way of saying the timing in which Reaves’ contract will become official is delicate, because the Lakers are currently a little more than $50 million under the cap with decisions still to be made.
Does LeBron come back, and if so for how much? He has options, all of which would pay him less than the $52.6 million he was paid this past season, and he likely will take his time to determine whether to return to L.A. for a ninth season, to go elsewhere (Cleveland? Miami? Golden State, to play with Steph Curry and Draymond Green?), or to call it a career after 23 exceptional NBA seasons.
There are other decisions that, for the moment, are out of Pelinka’s hands. Guard Marcus Smart (currently with a player option at $5.3 million) and center Deandre Ayton (an $8.1 million option) must declare by Monday at 2 p.m. whether they’ll stay or opt for free agency.
From this viewpoint, the Lakers would be better off if Smart stays, with his defensive chops and veteran savvy and leadership. Ayton’s season in L.A. pretty much resembled his seven previous seasons in Phoenix and Portland – flashes of effectiveness but plenty of inconsistency, along with career lows in scoring (12.5 ppg) and rebounding (8.0 rpg). When Coach JJ Redick made a point of discussing Ayton’s struggle to merely catch the ball when thrown to him after an April drubbing by Oklahoma City … that said something, and it wasn’t good.
If Ayton leaves, then, is it addition by subtraction? That depends on who replaces him. To be honest, none of the 41 guys listed on Spotrac’s list of free agent centers really quickens the pulse, though among those names are Mark Williams, the guy the Lakers tried to trade for two seasons ago; Jalen Duren, an All-Star for Detroit; Robert Williams III, a rim protector for Portland though one with an injury history; and Walker Kessler, a restricted free agent who played just five games for Utah last season before undergoing shoulder surgery.
And then there’s 7-footer Mitchell Robinson, who won a championship with the Knicks (but averaged 3.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 13.4 minutes in the five games of the Finals).
Center isn’t the only place where there could (and, in a couple of places, probably should) be change. Rui Hachimura, Maxi Kleber, Luke Kennard and Jaxson Hayes are all unrestricted free agents like James. From here, Hachimura is a priority to keep, Kennard would be in the “nice to have” category, and those other spots are opportunities for upgrades.
But $50 million in cap room only goes so far. And the longer James takes to make his decision, from this vantage point that would seem to either increase the chances that he’ll stay or lead into a retirement announcement. If he’s headed elsewhere, it will likely be sooner rather than later.
Either way, this is now undeniably Luka’s team, with Reaves riding shotgun. And if there’s going to be a shot at Banner No. 18 next spring, some additional upgrades will be needed.
jalexander@scng.com