The Los Angeles Lakers season could have effectively ended on April 2, when both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves suffered Grade 2 muscle strains against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Doncic would not return and Reaves would miss nearly four weeks. For most teams, losing their top two scoring options — including an MVP candidate — would have meant waving the white flag on the rest of the year.
That’s not what the Lakers did. They rallied behind LeBron James with strong performances from role players like Marcus Smart, Rui Hachimura and Luke Kennard to win their first round series against the Houston Rockets before ultimately getting swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder. When looking back at the 2025-26 season, that is exactly what Reaves will remember.
“Yeah, I mean JJ [Redick] touched on it in the locker room after the game,” Reaves said after the Lakers were eliminated. “It’s been fun, it’s been a joy, it’s been a grind. A lot of things didn’t go our way this season, and there was a lot of opportunities for us to quit, and that’s not who we’ve got in the locker room or the organization. Everybody stuck together.
“He touched on, that OKC game in OKC when we lost, I [got] hurt, Luka [Doncic] got hurt. We go to Dallas and lose. I’ve been around the NBA for five years now. I know a lot of teams would’ve given up then, and that wasn’t the case with this team. It’s been fun to go to work every single day. Yeah, I love this team.”
Reaves is right that most NBA teams would have given up in this situation. In fact, nearly every Lakers teams of the past five years would have done the same. But the culture of this year’s team was on a different level, and the way they rallied was remarkable to watch.
Reaves is now all but certain to decline his player option and become an unrestricted free agent. But this season showed how connected this version of the Lakers are, and that could play a major factor in him wanting to return to L.A. on a long-term deal.
Potential Austin Reaves free agent suitors emerging
Reaves is coming off of the best season of his career, and has seen meteoric rises in his impact from year to year in the NBA. Because of that, it’s possible that he is the best free agent in the 2026 summer class, and some teams have already begun to register reported interest.
The Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and Utah Jazz have all shown some form of interest. The first two are cap space teams and could afford him outright, while the latter two would need some help to afford him.
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