Once an undrafted rookie who made it to the Lakers locker room, Austin Reaves is the most celebrated star in LA this season. While he has undoubtedly grown since 2021 and his early days playing for the Lakers, there has been a quantum leap this year.
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LeBron James hasn’t yet played a game, while Luka Doncic has missed three since the season began. And in their absence, Reaves has already dropped two 40-point games.
Finding himself elevated to the status of main man, Reaves scored 51 points against the Sacramento Kings and followed it up with another 41 points against the Portland Trail Blazers. In the last game before Doncic returned to the fold, Reaves rose as the Lakers’ savior with a game-winner against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Doncic is back now. And LeBron is likely to follow soon. Analysts believe that life is going to get a lot easier for the two superstars, with Reaves finding another level to his game.
“When you put a guy like Austin Reaves under the heat lamp like that early in the season, when Luka comes back, there’s more trust. When LeBron comes back, there’s more trust. When one of them needs to go sit down, you can go, ‘Austin Reaves has a better matchup … Let’s get him the rock. He can go get us points,” Channing Frye said on the Road Trippin’ Show.
The 2016 NBA champion added that only a couple of teams in the West have three to four legit defenders right now. He was talking about the OKC Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs. The rest, with thin quality defensive units, could struggle against the Lakers.
“You can now go to him [Reaves] and say, we can attack this matchup for a whole half a quarter, [a] whole half, and like, give Luka an opportunity to get somebody else on him. It’s a big match-up problem, but his confidence, the way he plays and reads the game is pretty impressive,” Frye added.
His cohost Richard Jefferson concurred, adding that it isn’t even Reaves’ scoring that was the most impressive part; it was his passing.
“Don’t get me wrong. His boys shot the ball well. He got a lot of help. [Jake] LaRavia was balling. Had the best game, he had 17… So that also helped boost the assist numbers,” Jefferson said.
“Austin, what he’s doing is so impressive. It’s the management of the game. That is going to give LeBron and Luka, not even games off, quarters off, minutes off, stretches off. That is the greatest compliment that he brings to that team,” the former Lakers star added, noting that with Reaves in form, there’s really no respite for the opponents.
Frye jumped in to reiterate the difference Reaves’ assists would make. “But if he starts getting more than 10 assists, you go, ‘Hey, Luka, just go kill mode. I am going to get you five easy shots,'” he explained.
Life actually can become a lot easier for Doncic and LeBron, knowing that Reaves has stepped up and his passing is working like a cheat code. Since LeBron’s sciatica has put a big question mark over his fitness for the course of the season, Reaves’ form will make the Lakers management breathe a sigh of relief, too.
