Austin Reaves was having a fine sophomore season with the Los Angeles Lakers before he went down with a hamstring injury earlier this month. While a lot of the Lakers’ role players haven’t played up to expectations in this campaign, Reaves isn’t one of them.
He has become a fan favorite in L.A. and even received MVP chants from the crowd a few times! Reaves’ good play has meant he does have some trade value should the Lakers look to make some moves this season, but an NBA executive told Heavy’s Sean Deveney that the Lakers won’t be trading him just yet.
via Heavy:
“One of the things you do when you are looking at your roster is figure out what each player’s value is to your team and what he would be worth to other teams. It’s guesswork, but there are guys who you look at, they’re good players, but they don’t fit what you do and have more value by being traded. Then there are the opposite guys, the guys who are way more valuable to you than they would be to everyone else.”
“That’s where Reaves is with the Lakers. He is worth a lot more to them than what they’d get on the trade market for him. Now, they have to pay him in free agency, and we will have to see how that goes. And if the time comes when they get some big offer for a blockbuster, and they have to include Reaves or the deal falls apart, you bet they’re going to go ahead and include him. But they love the guy, LeBron loves the guy, they’re not trading him now,” The executive said.”
LeBron James has a lot of love for Reaves. There’s no doubt about that. The Lakers would also be looking to extend him, but he is expected to command a salary of around $10 million per year. They made a mistake by letting Alex Caruso leave in free agency, and fans would be hoping they don’t repeat it with Reaves.
NBA Analyst Had An Interesting Theory On Why LeBron James Has Been So Dominant Recently
While LeBron is a fan of Reaves and some of the other pieces on that roster, he knows that the Lakers still need more. NBA analyst Jay Williams explained James’ ridiculous play in recent weeks by saying that LeBron is putting pressure on the front office to make moves, and there have been growing calls for them to make a trade to help him.
It is doubtful, though, that the front office will succumb to pressure from the outside as they have been stubbornly holding on to their draft picks all this time. Kendrick Perkins believes that they are punishing LeBron for the Russell Westbrook trade by not making moves as wild theories continue to float around.
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