{"id":263223,"date":"2025-10-31T16:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/263223\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:53:09","slug":"austin-reaves-absolute-baseline-that-will-force-the-lakers-into-a-tough-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/263223\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Reaves’ ‘absolute baseline’ that will force the Lakers into a tough decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Reaves’ ‘absolute baseline’ that will force the Lakers into a tough decision<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Austin Reaves has started the 2025\/26 NBA season on an absolute tear — and as a result, the price for his services in the future is set to spike.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

In his fifth NBA season, Reaves is stepping out into the limelight in Lakerland. With Luka Doncic and LeBron James sidelined through injury, Reaves is averaging 34.2 points per game; he poured in 51 points in a win over the Sacramento Kings on Sunday<\/a>\u00a0before scoring 41 in a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> on Monday. Two days after that, Reaves sank a game-winning floater in Minneapolis as the Lakers<\/a> avoided a complete collapse against the Timberwolves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hot start could not come at a better time for Reaves, a pending free agent whose future received a big update on Friday.<\/p>\n

Reaves’ $30 million per year dream<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Tim Bontemps<\/a> reported that there is a widespread belief around the NBA when it comes to Reaves’ possible contract demands in 2026: he wants to become one of the 59 players making at least $30 million per season.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Though Reaves holds a $14.9 million player option for 2026\/27, the expectation is that the former Oklahoma star is going to decline it — especially if he can double his money. And a Western Conference executive who spoke to Bontemps thinks the Lakers, ultimately, will decide to pay the cost it will take to keep Reaves in LA.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think he’s going to quite keep up this pace because LeBron will take away touches,” the executive said. “But … the Lakers intend to keep him and he intends to stay, so my guess is it gets done.”<\/p>\n

Reaves, 27, could secure something close to a four-year, $180 million contract in free agency, but the prevailing theory is that the Lakers’ ability to offer a fifth year for more total money could sway the Arkansas native into re-signing long-term as Doncic’s backcourt partner.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Austin Reaves’ ‘absolute baseline’ that will force the Lakers into a tough decision originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[11654,6306,3013,3014,355,6406,6404,99,45328,6427],"class_list":["post-263223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-lakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-sports","tag-tim-bontemps","tag-timberwolves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}