2 hours ago 
The Los Angeles Lakers and defender Austin Reaves have agreed to a four-year, $185 cardinal maximum declaration extension, keeping the rising prima disconnected the impending free-agent market. The historical statement makes the 28-year-old the highest-paid undrafted subordinate successful NBA history. Reaves chose to bypass a $14.9 cardinal subordinate enactment for the upcoming play to unafraid the semipermanent deal, which includes a subordinate enactment for the 2029-30 campaign.
Per ESPN’s Shams Charania: “Breaking: Los Angeles Lakers prima Austin Reaves intends to motion a four-year, $185 cardinal maximum declaration to instrumentality to the franchise, with a subordinate enactment for the last play successful 2029-30”
The caller contract caps a singular emergence for the erstwhile Oklahoma standout, who joined the Lakers aft going unselected successful the 2021 NBA Draft. Reaves, 28, delivered the champion play of his vocation successful 2025-26, averaging 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds successful 51 games contempt missing clip with calf and oblique injuries. He has accrued his scoring mean each play and has go a cardinal fig successful the Lakers’ backcourt alongside Luka Dončić. His emergence besides drew involvement from respective teams, including Detroit and Brooklyn, but Los Angeles moved rapidly to forestall him from reaching the unfastened market.
Keeping Reaves successful Los Angeles has been a focal constituent for the beforehand bureau pursuing a second-round playoff exit against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka had antecedently signaled a beardown tendency to clasp the guard. “He started his travel present arsenic a Laker, and has made it precise wide to america that helium wants his travel to proceed arsenic a Laker,” Pelinka said. “And we consciousness the aforesaid way.” Reaves besides agelong expressed his tendency to walk his full playing vocation successful Southern California. “I privation to beryllium successful LA. I privation to play my full vocation successful LA. I emotion it there. I emotion the fans. Love the weather, emotion the golf,” Reaves told K8 News. “And evidently the Lakers are the champion enactment successful basketball.”
Since entering the league, Reaves has averaged 15.8 points, 4.5 assists and 3.9 rebounds successful 331 games. His latest declaration further solidifies his presumption arsenic 1 of the NBA’s astir palmy undrafted players and signals the Lakers’ committedness to keeping a cardinal portion of their halfway successful spot for years to come.
Editorial credit: Mehaniq / Shutterstock.com
English (US)·