Austin Reaves was recently on FanDuel TV for some talk, where he shared some insights into his career so far. The Los Angeles Lakers star also talked about one embarrassing situation, which was caused due to lack of his stardom.
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Upon discussing his popularity, Reaves indicated how he had to once convince the Brooklyn Nets security of his identity as a Lakers player. During the away encounter, the 25-year-old was receiving treatment because of his injury while the match was going on.
“I was injured at the time. So before the game, I was getting treatment and it went a little bit into the first quarter, maybe the second quarter.”
Following this, the shooting guard faced a peculiar resistance as soon as he walked into the game to sit on the bench with his teammates.
“Right before I got to the bench, I was about to sit down, security like grabbed me.”
Failing to recognize him as one of the players of the opposition, they questioned his intentions, asking, “Whoa what are you doing?”.
The moment became a source of amusement for a few of his teammates with Anthony Davis being one of them. “First person I had seen was AD. AD burst out laughing,” Hillbilly Kobe highlighted looking back on the incident. The Lakers center eventually had to convince the security, mentioning, “Yo, he is a player,” before the situation became favorable for Reaves.
“Have you ever been out and about and someone’s like’ you’re not a Laker’?” @MichelleDBeadle
“We were in Brooklyn…Right before I got to the bench, I was about to sit down, security like grabbed me and was like ‘Whoa what are you doing?'”
Austin Reaves says the Barclays… pic.twitter.com/xuDfy7TIzt
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) December 11, 2023
Following this, the Arkansas-born shared a similar story that took place in the franchise’s home court during his rookie year.
“I was just trynna walk through to go down the ramp and they would stop me and would be like, ‘What’s your credentials? You work for the team?'”.
Austin later pointed out how he became accustomed to this reception during his initial phase in the league.
The reputation of Austin Reaves finally grew but with that emerged new problems
After a few months in the NBA, the popularity of the backcourt youngster started to grow. His heroics on the court made him famous as a bench player before securing his position on the roster as a starter. Reaves rose to become a true Laker as silly issues like before stopped arising during the games.
Despite that, he had to face identity-related problems with one such taking place during their Western Conference semi-finals last season. During the postseason campaign, a YouTuber named Erick Decker, also known as Airrack, took advantage of his facial resemblance with Austin. The influencer turned into an identity theft as he successfully entered the arena pretending to be the Lakers star.
So, eventually, reputation became a source of worry for the 6’5 guard. Previously, it used to limit him in places. Now, others get to take benefits of it, if intended. Maybe that’s how it goes once you become an NBA player.
