In a press conference held during his visit to Manila, Philippines, the Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves spoke about the team’s offseason moves. The 26-year-old revealed that he still believes the purple and gold are championship contenders and explained why he’s excited to play for newly appointed head coach JJ Redick .
“ As our team, I like where we’re at. I think we have what we need to compete for a championship,” Reaves said. “So I like where we’re at. And obviously getting JJ, as I was talking about. Someone who is a fierce competitor and who we saw in Vegas for Summer League. He came up to us and said that he’s been staring at a white board for three hours trying to figure out how we’re going to do this stuff."
Why Reaves believes the Lakers are still contenders
The reason why the undrafted guard believes the Lakers can still compete for a championship is because they came close to beating their nemesis, the Denver Nuggets, in the first round of the playoffs last season. Los Angeles may have been beaten in five games, but Reaves pointed out that they have led for most of that series, particularly for exactly 165 minutes compared to Denver’s 59.
“ It was just a couple of sequences down the stretch that we didn’t really execute and they executed. If we do, we beat them in that series and we go on and have the opportunity to play Minnesota, ” AR added.
Reaves, who averaged a career-high 15.9 points and 5.5 assists in 32.1 minutes per game last season, is viewed as the third-best player of this Lakers team behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis. In the last campaign, he was tasked with more point guard and ball-handling duties with the departure of Dennis Schroder and the absence of Gabe Vincent. The guard is looking forward to doing the same this season but with a different coach at the helm.
“ Obviously a new head coach in JJ Redick, can’t wait to get back to L.A. and go to battle with him. He’s a super competitive guy ever since he’s been at Duke, people have been going at him. He’s probably the second most hated player in Duke history so he’s been scrutinized his whole career so he’ll go into coaching with a chip on his shoulder to prove everybody wrong as well because everybody’s talking about how he doesn’t have experience and that the Lakers should’ve probably went in another direction, but I’m super excited to get back and work with him because I know the competitive nature that he works with every day ,” he stated.
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Playing with LeBron and Bronny
Reaves also acknowledged that this upcoming season will feel significantly different for the Lakers because they will have the first ever father and son duo in LeBron and Bronny James. AR said that he was excited to experience this moment in NBA history and talked about how cool this moment was for both LeBron and Bronny.
“ I know obviously for him, it’s a very very big thing. We’ve had conversations about it. I know he’ll be extra motivated to be at his peak level as always, ” Reaves said.
Only time will tell if AR's belief in the Lakers still being championship contenders turns out to be true. But for now, it’s good for Rob Pelinka and the rest of the organization to know that despite the public scrutiny their offseason moves (or lack thereof) continue to garner this summer, they still have the support and trust of one of their key players.
Related: "I had teachers tell me that I needed to focus more on school" - Austin Reaves reveals that many believed he wouldn’t be able to make it to the NBA
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