Austin Reaves is going to get PAID next summer.
It is one of the few certainties in an unpredictable league. Reaves took a discount in the summer of 2023, signing for four years, $53.8 million, a thank you to the Lakers team that gave the undrafted kid from Arkansas, by way of Oklahoma, a shot. Since then, he has grown into a critical part of the Lakers’ offense, averaging 34.2 points, 10 assists, and 5.6 rebounds a night through five games this season, stepping up and taking over the offense with both Luka Doncic and LeBron James out.
AUSTIN REAVES’ INCREDIBLE WEEK OF BASKETBALL CONTINUES WITH A GAME-WINNER! 🔥😱
— NBA on NBC and Peacock (@NBAonNBC) October 30, 2025
🎥 NBA/ESPN pic.twitter.com/KguRtfEa7t
Next summer, Reaves is cashing in. He will decline his player option and is in line for a massive raise from the $13.9 million he is making this season — maybe almost tripling his salary. The CBA limits what the Lakers can offer in an extension — four years, $87.4 million is the max — and Reaves is set to make far more than that, so he will hit the open market. A contract paying an average of $30 million per a season is the floor, and it’s possible that it could reach north of $40 million a season.
Expect the Lakers to pay that. Something Tim Bontemps wrote about at ESPN.
Another executive theorized that with Reaves being able to get as much as four years and roughly $180 million from another team in free agency, that a five-year deal for more total dollars could be a good compromise to get a deal done to keep Reaves in L.A.
“I don’t think he’s going to quite keep up this pace because LeBron will take away touches,” the executive said, “but he is good and the Lakers intend to keep him and he intends to stay, so my guess is it gets done.”
The Lakers entered this season with a key question to answer: Can Reaves be the No. 2 option alongside Doncic on a championship team in Los Angeles? We don’t know the answer to that yet. Offensively, Reaves is showing that he can take over for stretches and is an All-Star-level scorer with the ball in his hands, and the Lakers will need a secondary shot creator next to Doncic. Reaves needs to show he can be an off-ball, catch-and-shoot guy next to Doncic, but the offensive fit is there. The bigger question is defense: Can the Lakers win a title with minus defenders Reaves and Doncic on the court together for extended stretches? Does that pairing put a ceiling on how good they can be? With the right 3&D wings and a shot-blocking center, can it work?
Even if the answer to that is ultimately no, the Lakers have to re-sign Reaves this summer. They cannot afford to let him walk for nothing, plus he is a fan favorite and that matters. Even if the ultimate plan is to trade him for a better fit next to Doncic, they need to re-sign Reaves and use his salary to facilitate the trade for that player, rather than letting him walk. Cap space is great, but elite players are not changing teams via free agency right now, the Lakers need players and picks to trade for whatever moves they make.
There are a lot of other questions for the Lakers to answer next summer — Does LeBron James return, and at what price? Is Deandre Ayton the center of the future next to Doncic and do they re-sign him? — but the only question about Reaves should be how much they are going to pay him?
