Report: Spurs ‘considered’ offering Austin Reaves big offer sheet
One of the Los Angeles Lakers’ biggest priorities heading into this offseason was retaining restricted free agent guard Austin Reaves.
The Lakers eventually re-signed Reaves to a four-year, $53.8 million deal on the second day of NBA Free Agency using his Early Bird Rights. But they were not the only team reportedly in the Reaves running, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, citing that the San Antonio Spurs as a team who kicked the tires on the idea.
“The Spurs considered offering Reaves a restricted free agency sheet worth $21 million per season, league sources told HoopsHype,” Scotto wrote Wednesday. “Ultimately, however, the Spurs were scared off by the widespread belief that the Lakers would match any offer sheet for Reaves and chose to preserve cap space as a salary dump destination for future draft pick compensation.”
Reaves recently disclosed on Showtime’s “All The Smoke” that the Houston Rockets and Spurs were destinations he considered before re-upping Los Angeles. Scotto also noted that the Rockets were “closely monitoring” Reaves’ situation and were prepared to offer a bloated offer sheet if Fred VanVleet didn’t sign there.
Since he only had two years of NBA experience, the most any other team could have offered Reaves was a back-loaded four-year contract worth $101.9 million because of the Arenas Provision. If the Lakers, who were hard-capped after signing Taurean Prince to the bi-annual and using most of their midlevel exception on Gabe Vincent, refused to match any offer sheet, Reaves’ annual cap hit would have been his AAV, or in this case, $21MM per season.
Thankfully for Los Angeles, they were able to retain their prized guard, who was one of their top players last postseason, before any rival suitors were able to make things interesting.
The 25-year-old broke out in his second NBA season with the Lakers, averaging 13.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists on 52.9 percent shooting and 39.8 percent from deep. He sported a 68.7 true-shooting percentage, nearly nine percentage points greater (.600) relative to his rookie sample, which was a smaller sample.
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