The Los Angeles Lakers are ready to open up the vault for Austin Reaves.
The Lakers plan to offer their star guard Reaves a five-year, $240 million contract upon the start of free agency this summer, Ashish Mathur of Lakers Daily reported on Wednesday. Mathur adds that the Lakers have “no fear” of losing Reaves to another team and notes that Reaves has close relationships with both Lakers superstar Luka Doncic and with head coach JJ Redick.
Reaves, 27, holds a modest $14.9 million player option for next season. But given his superb 2025-26 campaign thus far, it will be a no-brainer for Reaves to turn down that option in order to test free agency this offseason.
The former undrafted player Reaves is putting up career numbers in his fifth season. He is averaging 23.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game on 50/38/87 shooting splits despite having to share usage with both Doncic and LeBron James.
There had been some talk in recent months that Reaves might potentially have a max contract offer to be a No. 1 option elsewhere (with one particular rival team beckoning). But the incumbent Lakers have the built-in advantage of being able to offer a fifth contract year to Reaves on top of the familiarity factor with Reaves having spent his entire NBA career in Los Angeles.
Of course, the issue with paying Reaves roughly $48 million per year through 2031 is how the Lakers will fill out the rest of their roster beyond that. Doncic is making just under $54 million per year on his own mega-contract that runs until 2029, so Los Angeles may have to get creative in order to build a championship-caliber supporting cast.
