Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - How Much Money Is Too Much Money for Austin Reaves?

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

The Lakers have some hard choices to make this summer. And while the idea of bringing back Austin Reaves isn't necessarily one of them -- unless a better alternative presents itself, a relative long shot, the Lakers don't have any viable way to replace Reaves if he goes -- there could very well be some uncomfortable conversations about how much it costs to get the deal done.  Tim Bontemps of ESPN reports that many NBA insiders expect Reaves's deal to come in at or above $40 mil a year, as opposed to, say, $35 million. That's not a trivial difference, and could cause the Lakers a little pain as they try to build a high-end contender as quickly as they can around Luka Doncic.  He notes that teams like Brooklyn and Chicago are in position to make very significant offers, much closer to the maximum Reaves can get under CBA rules. That would require Reaves to enter situations where titles aren't part of the equation, but if the money was that much better, and maybe if he felt the Lakers lowballed him, could he go that direction?  It feels like Reaves wants to come back. He's said he's not interested in squeezing as much as he can from the team. The Lakers want him to return. What remains to be seen is the number. What's something the Lakers, and Reaves, could both feel good about?    HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky    Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Ignite your taste buds with the flavor of the summer. Get a Firework Freeze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot today. For more information, visit https://FiveHourEnergy.com. Betterhelp This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.Sign up and get 10% off at https://BetterHelp.com/LOCKEDONNBA. KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything.   DoorDashFrom tipoff to overtime, stay in your bag and order on DoorDash.Get snacks, drinks, gear — whatever gets you through the season — delivered right to your door.DoorDash. In your bag all season long. QuoMake this the year where no opportunity - and no cutsomer - slips away.Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to http://Quo.com/lockedonnba. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel.Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are there teams plotting to steal Austin Reeves away from the Lakers? We'll tell you next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks everybody for stop my Locked on Lakers, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky, plenty to get into for today's afternoon show, Andy, starting with the rumor mill

kicking into gear here one of the premier if not the premier soon to be unrestricted free agents not going to happen hasn't happened yet but it's going to with Austin Reeves I think that is you know you could debate him or LeBahn or whatever

among the UFAs as we call them the unrestricted guys Austin is right there at the top And it seems as if the market may not just be the Lakers. Yeah, Tim Bondemps over at ESPN did a piece breaking down some of the news and rumors, things that he's hearing regarding different free agents around the league. And from Bon Temps's piece, quote, several scouts and executives predict something in the range of five years, 200 million, but below his five-year max of $239 million per Bobby Mark. I'd be really surprised if the first year starts with a three instead of a four, an East Coast scout said, but the Lakers need to keep them. And by all accounts, he wants to be there. So I think

he makes it work. One potential bidder to watch the summer sources said is the Brooklyn Nets, who will enter the offseason with more than enough salary cap space to accommodate a max type player. Lot to unpack from that, both from the Nets perspective and the Lakers perspective because I have questions. I the first thing that jumped out of me because I mean Brooklyn has like very few guys in their payroll like they don't it's not they they've got they're one of these teams it's got when you think about who could overpay a little bit who could like they are absolutely on that list who could use a player like Austin Reeves yeah Brooklyn you know like in terms of

they want to get competitive or give some guys on that team a little bit of guidance. You know, Austin's a little old for that rebuild, but not a little. He's 28, man. He is too old. Just turned 28. Happy birthday. But not crazy old. I, you know, he's not like Ron.

He's too old for a ground-up rebuild. I think, yes, but depending on how Brooklyn wants to do this with some of their assets, So if they're going to try to jump the line a little bit, you know, trade some one of the 73 first round picks that they had last year's draft. Like, I'm not saying I approve of the plan. I'm just saying I can see a scenario in which they try to do it. They are, though, one of those teams that you look at it and say, like, who could make Austin an offer that could put the Lakers in kind of an uncomfortable space? in how much money they'd have to retain to keep him. When you start getting into numbers that start with a four instead of a three,

I think right there, as much as the Lakers might be prepared to go that high, I think they're still hoping out, like kind of holding out for a world in which that number is much closer to say 35. That's certainly what they would hope. And obviously there is also the question of whether Austin would want, to play out his prime in what is now part of an extreme rebuild, which doesn't feel like Austin's jam, but money does spend. I maintain, as I think was pretty obvious,

earlier in our conversation, that unless the Nets want to re-up Michael Porter Jr., who I believe is entering the last year of his deal, and like team up Austin and a third quality player to be named later, or they think this bunch of kids that they have, are on the verge of growing up way faster than the consensus. But hey, we heard all, we heard all heading into this season. Spurs are too young.

They're not ready yet. And they're in the finals. Where's my Nolan Traori hive? I mean, maybe they know something about this core that the rest of us don't. I think there are- questions about what the appeal would be to Austin, because he really is somebody that wants to win. Like, that's something that is important to him.

So Brooklyn doesn't seem like the natural spot for that. I also think unless Brooklyn can really make some moves fast, Austin makes absolutely no sense for them at all, unless they're hoping to just flip Austin in six months. But that takes a lot of control out of all hands, and he's smart enough to know. Yeah, I mean, let me. the Lakers could trade him as well at some point over the course of this contract,

at least you start somewhere where you want to be. Right. What this drives home to me. Oh, and the other part of the list is the Bulls, and that's the end of the list. To another team that's like, yeah. I don't really see it, but if I had to choose, I'd probably go to Brooklyn. If nothing else, I mean, it seems like a better run. organization, maybe kind of

sort of. The Bulls are flipping the whole thing. Yeah, there's a new year of bowls. Right. It is hard to say. I will say this, though, if you are a Nets fan and here we're winging our hands and figuring out all this other stuff about like, you know, how can you sign Austin

with his playoff track record? Is he worth that kind of money? You don't have to worry about that in Brooklyn. You're signing him for the regular season where Austin is always quite good. But they almost need to pay him as big a number as possible just to get to the floors and stuff that they have. What I was saying, though, like what this really drives home to me is before we get to the right number for Austin, what number you feel good with, what's the market going to bear and all this other stuff. Some of this is like a ratio thing.

The Lakers need to be. Austin, I think all things being equal once stay in L.A. I absolutely 100% believe that. I do not think that's posturing. I 100% believe Austin. He says, I'm not trying to extract every nickel that I can from this negotiation. I don't think he's trying to just annihilate the Lakers in this negotiation.

Because in point of fact, Austin is in a very powerful position vis-a-vis the Lakers because they really, the Lakers have to be really careful. They can't let them go for nothing. So it's be hard to let him go, period. They really can't let him go for nothing. And if Austin just flat walks, the Lakers are in trouble. So what you can't have is a situation where Austin feels like the Lakers are taking advantage of his sort of goodwill toward the franchise,

as well as his willingness to stay, you know, maybe for a little bit less, and even more important, his desire to play winning basketball. Like if the Lakers can rightly say, like, look, man, we're probably the only team that can, you know, you're going to even have a chance to win on anytime soon that can pay you a pretty good amount of money.

You know, okay, these guys will pay you a lot more than we will, but, you know, what are you going to do? Go play in Brooklyn. go play in Chicago. So next, let's talk about like, what is the respectful way to kind of handle this where you get a little bit of a discount, what a discount might look like and where this could go wrong. So we'll get into it next.

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Like there's a dance going on here. The Lakers do not want to pay Austin more than they need to. The Lakers do not want to do this for a lot of reasons. Like they're most notably, they got to figure out how to build a team that can compete with San Antonio, with Oklahoma City, with Denver, with, you know, they got to get out of the group that they're in before they can start competing with the next tier.

And that's hard to do if you overpay Austin. That said, there's a nice way to do this. And I think if the Lakers were to make it seem like that Austin, you make Austin feel like he doesn't have any choices, that's what I think opens the door to the, you know, $35 or $40 million more that Brooklyn might be offering. over the course of the contract or the 35 or 40 or 50 million more the Chicago's offering over the course of a contract.

That's when I think that would become more of a live possibility. I mean, it seems like Team Reeves and Team Lakers have a really good relationship. It's something that has built over the last four or five years Dawson's been with the Lakers, that it seems like over time, both sides have really a pre-year. appreciated each other and like appreciated being part of the same story. Like as much as Rob Polinka loves and flowery speak to talk about Player X's journey with the Lakers and where their next destination is going to be in mythical terms or whatever, I do think he genuinely. We'll see you at Valhalla. Yes.

But I do think that he genuinely enjoys the idea that Austin has gone from undrafted player to the player of. his stature under their watch. I think they appreciate it for him personally to say nothing of it being a developmental win for them. So that being said, I think it gives them like a good starting point to negotiate for what both sides want, which won't be exactly the same thing in good faith. That being said, though, it is a business. And both sides are going to be looking out for their own relative best interest. I don't think they're too far off in terms of where the middle ground would be in their interest, just because if both sides want to be together as much as it seems like it does,

that will automatically motivate you to land in a place of agreement. It just will be really interesting to see how firmly that first number is a three versus whether it becomes a four or if you're rounding up, it's much closer to a four than a three, because when you start looking at Lucas salary next year, a 49 mil, let's say Austin got 38. So 49, 38, that is 87. Then you start really looking at what you're going to pay or not pay LeBron, because let's say LeBron was at 30 million, which would be like 45% of what he made this season with the Lakers. at that point, you're talking about almost 120 million on three guys that I don't think anybody is 100% confident is the trio to get this team to the finals and a championship. Unless you're just really convinced that that one month in March is sustainable in terms of how often you can play that way, success rate, all of that. you just cross your fingers for good health.

But otherwise, it gets back to something I've brought up a lot during this off season, which is that it feels like in a lot of ways they could be setting up for a choice between Austin and LeBron if they really want to do anything other than running it back, unless LeBron is willing for something that is more or less exception level money. I think they're just going to have difficulty doing it. Well, I think that's true. But with all caveats to my ability to do cap math aside. But it's also, I think even if LeBron goes, the question is like how much can you,

because let's say take your hypothetical of, you know what, March, when everybody was healthy, it kind of clicked in. The Lakers, you know, are going to, no matter what they do, are going to have to kind of hope and pray to get a little bit lucky here and there and see what happens. Which every team, by the way, is doing these days. Correct. And like just there's only so much you can improve over the course of one-off season, probably. One of the things we talked about this for the big show on Monday,

one of the things that is so important that we've learned is, you know, depth is critical not just for, you know, being able to say we got a 10-man rotation or whatever it is, but for protecting your stars going into the playoffs. And so that they can perform as best as they can once they can. get there. And I think as we've seen this year, as much as anything, you know, Austin is a player who gets hurt. Like, you got to be able to try to protect him and keep his minutes down. I don't think anybody in the league was playing more minutes than Austin. I think was it Lucco first and Austin third or fourth? I think I might have that backwards. But those two guys were playing

tons of minutes. And if you want to keep Austin in the best position, you got to cut that down. You got to cut down Lucas minutes. You can't play LeBron 38 minutes a game or 35 minutes a game over the court. That's just not an option. So how do you, even if you believe that's a core that can serve you well over the course of the season, how do you put enough players around them?

And so that gets really hard to do. But it's kind of hard to do even if LeBron goes. And I think that's one of the tricky parts about this offseason is finding, players that can make you better. If you want to get off LeBron, okay, where are you going to find players that can make you better for this year?

Because part of the build the team around the, you know, for Luka is coming up. Like you, that's not a five year plan or a four year plan or whatever. It's a starting right now plan. Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, I'll be honest with you. I am, I, I, I,

am and have been much more in the camp of currently at least the odds favor, something that looks a lot more like run it back with, you know, a couple exceptions and changes and, you know, some tweaks here and there. But the core looks kind of similar. I think that is of higher odds right now than other things.

But, I mean, like what, what's the number, like do the Lakers, I mean, if somebody maxes out Austin, I don't think it's going to happen. But maybe then it's like, you know, what are we going to do?

It's too much. Like he wants to, like, and maybe too much for Austin to say no to. But like the Lakers can just can't compete with that. The most another team just really clear so people know, the most another team can throw at Austin because the Lakers, as the team with his bird rights, can give him the biggest offer in a fifth year.

The most another team can throw out is four and 170. So it's nearly 45 million a season. I do not think Austin Reeves is a $45 million player. Respectfully, he's a very good player. Like he's very good. I don't think he is a $45 million player, particularly teamed up with Luca, where they turn into, by that math,

a $94 million duo that have, I think, too many of the same strengths and weaknesses. With this CBA and the restrictions in it and all that, I think I'd agree with you. But I wonder just what the number is where the Lakers go like, we can't do it. Like what's our break? Because it's, I think anything under 35 is like you sprint if you're the Lakers to,

you know, get that paper signed and whatever. They'll agree to it. I think anything between 35 and 40, you're like, I wish it was a little bit less, but sort of the cost of doing business. I don't know where we're going to find another player. But when it starts to get over 40, I think it makes it really uncomfortable because like how do you replace him? If he's signing trade with Brooklyn, for example, can you even put that together?

Like, I don't know. I mean, it gets very uncomfortable to spend the money and it gets very uncomfortable to not spend the money. Well, I mean, when you think about this, like I said, earlier in the show. I don't think it makes any sense for Brooklyn to throw the full boat at Austin. I would genuinely not understand

what they're doing. And I don't think the Bulls also have a super pressing need for Austin. Whether you're talking about who's on the roster or just where they currently sit right now. Where this competition could come in would be another team looking to try to work out some type of

sign and trade with Austin. Like they think Austin could be, they don't have a cap space for it, like to outright sign him as a free agent, but they think Austin could be a good fit for what they're doing. They're willing to pay Austin a number that could make the Lakers very uncomfortable, but maybe you work out something where you send them a player that might be a better fit alongside Luca at relatively the same price. Well, I mean, that would be the ideal solution, but I just, you know, it's there.

I've given it a little bit of thought. Yeah, and we'll break some of these things down over the course of the offseason as it develops. But it's just the scenarios, like I think overwhelmingly, you know, if you're a betting person, point to Reeves coming back to L.A. Makes the most sense for everybody. But there are landmines around there. And so we'll see how it starts to develop. But the number is certainly it's going to be higher than a lot of Lakers fans would like. but as we talk to go back and listen to the um the uh the big show for monday like we had a long

conversation about chat uh who was miserable in the western conference finals and is Oklahoma cities in a similar situation you got a guy who's making a ton more money flaws were revealed uh potential problem things but like what do you do because these are guys who kind of earn in this salary range they don't grow on trees and uh you know, they're very difficult to replace. So locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you're going to hang out with over 38,000 subscribers, got some guests coming on the show over the course of the of the week. So keep an eye out for that.

We'll see everyone next time.