Estimates for Austin Reaves’ next contract continue to rise amidst his scorching-hot start to the 2025-26 NBA season.
On Friday, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps reported that “the belief around the league is that $30
million per year is the absolute baseline” for Reaves when he becomes an unrestricted free agent next offseason. As Bontemps noted, 59 players are currently above that salary threshold this season, including the likes of C.J. McCollum, Jerami Grant and Jordan Poole. Most teams would happily trade any of those three for Reaves.
Heading into training camp, team and league sources told Dan Woike of The Athletic that they expected Reaves to earn more than $35 million annually on his next contract. Sources from two teams believed Reaves could earn more than $40 million per year, and that was before his recent star turn sans LeBron James and Luka Dončić.
Since Reaves has only five years of NBA experience, his max salary on his next contract will be limited to 25% of the 2026-27 salary cap. As of now, the cap is projected to be roughly $166 million. If it lands at that number, Reaves’ max salary will be $41.5 million. The Lakers could offer him a five-year max deal worth $240.7 million, while other teams’ best offers would max out at around $178.5 million. That’s a roughly $62.2 million difference, albeit with an extra year tacked onto the Lakers’ offer.
In fact, that’s what one NBA executive expects the Lakers to do to reduce Reaves’ cap hit moving forward, as relayed in Bontemps article as well.
“Another executive theorized that with Reaves being able to get as much as four years and roughly $180 million from another team in free agency, that a five-year deal for more total dollars could be a good compromise to get a deal done to keep Reaves in L.A.,” the exec said.
Again, there’s more than $60 million in wiggle room between what the Lakers can offer Reaves in free agency and what other teams can offer. However, there isn’t a significant difference between the four-year max the Lakers can offer Reaves ($185.9 million) compared with another team. Add in the outrageous state tax in California, and it’s possible that Reaves would receive less take-home pay from the Lakers on a four-year deal than he would on another team, especially one without state tax.
As we covered back in February, Reaves’ below-market $20.9 million salary-cap hold may be the key to how his free agency unfolds. He and the Lakers will have a brief window before free agency begins to exclusively negotiate a new deal. But even if they do reach an agreement, they don’t have to put pen to paper right away. They figure to keep his cap hold on their books, spend the remainder of their cap space — potentially around $60 million — and then re-sign Reaves via his Bird rights.
The Philadelphia 76ers pulled off a more extreme version of that with Tyrese Maxey in the 2024 offseason, which is what enabled them to sign Paul George in free agency. The 2026 free-agent class has already been significantly whittled down, but the Lakers could lob a hefty offer sheet at Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler or Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren if they decide to move on from Deandre Ayton next offseason. They could also do the funniest thing ever and try to sign Phoenix Suns center Mark Williams to an offer sheet.
Since the Lakers need to pull off the cap-hold trick with Reaves to maximize their cap space this offseason, it would be ill-advised for them to lowball him in free agency. Unlike this past offseason, when the Brooklyn Nets were the only team with real spending power, multiple teams are projected to have significant cap space next summer. If the Lakers try to squeeze Reaves, they’d risk losing him for nothing in free agency, which would be a devastating setback as they look to reorient around Luka Dončić.
If the Lakers can pull off the cap-hold trick with Reaves, he won’t cut into any other meaningful moves that they try to swing next offseason. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s headed for a massive payday in free agency.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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