Max Contract Won’t Change Austin Reaves’ Mindset

There are a lot of new faces on the Los Angeles Lakers this season, and many players from last year’s squad who are no longer with the team. But one player who the front office made sure to retain was guard Austin Reaves, who signed a new four-year, $185 million deal to remain with the team.

Over the past couple of years, Reaves had ben one of the most underpaid players in the entire league based on his production, but now he has finally gotten paid and with that comes heightened expectations. But he insists that new money won’t change how he approaches the game every night.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anything really changes about how I approach the game,” Reaves said during Lakers Media Day. “I go into every game wanting to win the game, whatever that looks like. It’s not like I’m sitting here saying I got to score 25 points tonight. It’s just whatever I can do to help our team be successful on every single night. It could be, you know, do that one night, do something else another night, so whatever the case may be night-to-night is what I’m going to try to do to help our team be successful.”

Last year, Reaves averaged 23.3 points per game so raising that to 25 isn’t a massive leap and with LeBron James gone, the road is clear for the Arkansas native to take on more of that offensive load on a nightly basis. But the mindset of just being willing to do whatever he needs to do in order to help the Lakers win is the right one to take.

The Lakers likely will need Reaves to average in that 25-point range in order to remain competitive and ease the burden on Luka Doncic, but the roster also has more depth overall.

Reaves has improved every year he’s been in the NBA and is more than deserving of the contract he received this summer. But there is no doubt that the expectations are different and doubters will be out in full force ready to pounce if he struggles. But this mindset is what has gotten Reaves to this point, so sticking with it only makes sense.

JJ Redick plans to stagger minutes for Luka Doncic & Austin Reaves

Reaves and Doncic formed the highest-scoring duo in the NBA last season and plan to build on that this year. They will be the catalysts of the Lakers’ offense and head coach JJ Redick plans to stagger their minutes so one of the two is always on the court.