Austin Reaves Is Excited to Compete for a Championship With Luka Doncic

· Yahoo Sports

Reaves is still a good signing for LA.

Austin Reaves is staying with the Los Angeles Lakers, and he has no plans to keep quiet about what the goal is.

The 27-year-old guard agreed to a four-year, $185 million max contract extension that keeps him in purple and gold through at least 2029, with a player option for the 2029-30 season.

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Shortly after the deal was done, Reaves spoke with Dan Woike of The Athletic and made his priorities very clear.

Reaves Wants a Ring

"It's going to be fun," Reaves said. "And like I said, winning a championship is the main goal. And I feel like, you know, with me and Luka, that's a great starting piece to compete."

Reaves went on to tie the contract directly to what he and the team are both working toward.

"And when we put a roster together that can go compete, I feel like winning a championship will basically solidify everything that I want and everything that the Lakers want," Reaves said. "And it kind of meets the common goal of why they gave me the money they did."

That kind of awareness is what separates Reaves. He is not treating the extension as an arrival but as a starting point, tying the money back to results instead of just celebrating the bag.

The Defensive Questions Remain

As fun as the Doncic-Reaves backcourt is on offense, the defensive concerns are impossible to overlook heading into next season.

The Los Angeles Lakers finished 53-29 and won the Pacific Division, but they allowed 116.4 points per 100 possessions and ranked 19th in the league defensively.

That weakness showed up in the postseason when they were swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round after beating Houston in six games to open the playoffs.

Doncic led the NBA in scoring at 33.5 points per game with 8.3 assists and 7.7 rebounds in 64 games, while Reaves put up career-bests of 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds on 49 percent shooting in 51 games.

Getting buckets is not the problem for this duo, but opposing teams are going to target both of them on the defensive end and that is exactly what happened when the playoffs started.

Why the Lakers Had to Move Fast

The Lakers could not afford to sit around and wait on this deal.

Multiple teams were lining up to throw max-level money at Reaves once free agency officially opened on June 30, with the Detroit Pistons among those reportedly ready to make a run.

Losing Reaves would have blown up any chance of building a real contender around Doncic, so the front office locked him in as early as they could.

The Lakers still need a rim-protecting center, more wing defenders and the right role players to fill out the roster around their two stars.

Reaves clearly understands that a championship is not going to happen with just him and Doncic alone, and his words after signing the deal show he sees the extension as the beginning of the process rather than the finish line.

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