With the Finals officially over, silly season is fully upon the NBA. Every team is now in the offseason and the league’s focus turns to the draft, the offseason and the future.
For the Lakers, that means a look at an upcoming free agency that will be incredibly important. One of the first pieces of business the team will need to take care of is Austin Reaves, who will almost certainly decline his player option.
While the most recent reports suggested that Reaves is looking for the max and is expected
to have suitors elsewhere around the league, it seems the general consensus around the league is that he’ll remain in LA.
On Sunday evening, longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein reported that the expectation is Reaves will re-sign with the purple and gold in free agency.
The Lakers are widely expected to re-sign Reaves, whose fondness for Lakerland as well as his blossoming backcourt partnership alongside Luka Dončić are regarded as strong lures that suggest the sides will ultimately come to terms on a new pact.
After Austin spent most of the season saying he wanted to be a Laker and wasn’t even looking for the biggest payday possible, his team has tried to regain some leverage. First, they made it clear they were expecting a max deal and, last week, it was reported that the Nets and Pistons could be among the teams to pursue Reaves in free agency.
However, according to Stein, all the signals Reaves put out about wanting to remain in LA may be scaring teams away from making an offer for him.
Yet it is unclear what sort of external interest Reaves will generate after his strong production over the past two seasons … at least partly due to the inherent skepticism that stems from trying to woo him away from the Lakers. Brooklyn and Detroit have been mentioned as potential Reaves suitors, but neither is seen as a certainty yet.
A similar situation played out the last time Reaves was set for free agency. All signs were pointing to him remaining in LA, but in that instance, he was set for restricted free agency, so teams didn’t want to bother tying up cap space only to have him return to the Lakers.
This time, they may see it as a pointless venture to spend time negotiating a deal with Reaves as opposed to working out deals with free agents who actually might want to sign with the team.
If this is how teams feel, then perhaps it means the Lakers can agree to a more team-friendly deal if — or when — Reaves re-signs.
For now, though, it’ll be a lot of posturing from both sides in the final weeks leading up to the start of free agency.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
