Austin Reaves Reacts to Lakers’ Quiet Offseason

Los Angeles Lakers star guard Austin Reaves is not losing sleep on the team’s lack of movement this offseason.

“I like where we’re at,” Reaves told reporters in the Philippines during a promotional trip for a sports betting app on August 3. “And I think that we have what we need to go compete for a championship.”

Reaves pointed to the Lakers leading the Denver Nuggets for 150 out of 200 minutes in their first-round playoff matchup as a reason for his optimism. Despite that startling fact, the Lakers lost in five games which Reaves said “can’t even really wrap your mind around.”

“But it was just a couple of sequences down the stretch that we didn’t execute. They executed but if we [did], we beat them in that series and we go on and have an opportunity to play Minnesota. So I like where we’re at.”

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Austin Reaves Dishes on JJ Redick’s Approach as a Coach

The Lakers had a quiet offseason despite LeBron James‘ earlier offer to take a paycut. They struck out in their free-agent targets. The only major change they made was to replace the ineffective Darvin Ham with rookie head coach JJ Redick.

“[Redick] is someone that’s a fierce competitor,” Reaves told reporters in the Philippines.

The Lakers guard recalled an interesting meeting with Redick in Las Vegas during the NBA Summer League.

“He came up to us and was like ‘I’ve been staring at a whiteboard for three hours trying to figure out like, how we’re going to do this stuff.’ So you can just tell the intensity that he has, the time that he’s going to put in,” Reaves said.

The Lakers have surrounded Redick with former NBA head coaches Nate McMillan and Scott Brooks, along with G League Coach of the Year Lindsey Harding. Longtime assistant coaches Bob Beyer, Greg St. Jean and Beau Levesque complete Redick’s staff.

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Why the Lakers Have Been Quiet so Far?

The Lakers have been quiet this offseason but not for the lack of trying.

They have targeted Klay Thompson and DeMar DeRozan but both free agents went to Dallas and Sacramento, respectively via sign-and-trade. The Lakers’ lack of financial flexibility doomed their offseason.

During their rookies Bronny James and Dalton Knecht‘s introductory press conference, Lakers vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka explained their cautious approach in the trade market.

“We’re going to always be aggressive to trying to make roster upgrades and we’ll be relentless to continue to look at what we can do,” Pelinka told reporters.

But he also noted they are being cautious because of the new, punitive Collective Bargaining Agreement that restricts teams who reach the first and second aprons on what they can do to build out their rosters.

“If the right deal comes and we have to put in draft picks, we will,” Pelinka told reporters. “We are now in the apron world.”

The Lakers have two first-round picks (2029 and 2031) at their disposal plus five second-round picks from next year’s draft until 2031.

Pelinka cited contending teams losing players, which is a result of the new CBA.

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