Arguably no Los Angeles Lakers player will have to make a bigger adjustment to his role with the addition of Luka Doncic than Austin Reaves. The fourth-year guard had really grown into his role as more of a primary creator for this team, but Doncic will now push him into more of an off-ball role, not to mention a change in his defensive priorities.
Through three games, there have been some growing pains obviously and things haven’t quite come together, though in the eyes of Reaves that is to be expected. Reaves feels that it’s most important for Doncic to be comfortable just being himself and feels the Lakers ultimately will be able to figure things out and integrate him pretty quickly.
“Yeah, I don’t think anybody thought that it was going to click right away,” Reaves said after the Lakers’ loss to the Charlotte Hornets Wednesday night. “I think everybody knew that there was going to be some growing pains and trying to figure out how to run everything, to be honest.
“Luka [Doncic] is a one-of-a-kind player, a top-three player in this league. And he’s got to be comfortable being himself. Because like I said, he was one of the best players in the world, so we need him to be him. And it’s just going to take a couple games, couple weeks, to figure out what that best looks like. But I think that with the group that we have, we can do that fairly quick.”
Reaves would continue on, noting that all of the Lakers must be comfortable playing to their strengths and expressed confidence in this team’s ability to do that and ultimately play the right way.
“I think everybody just needs to play to their strengths,” Reaves added. “Obviously, with Bron and Luka [Doncic], they’re going to create chaos for other team’s defenses, and guys are going to get open looks, and if they’re open, we want them to shoot it with high confidence. If they don’t like the look, then be yourself at the end of the day.
“Everybody in that locker room has been playing basketball for a long time, and they know, as well as we all know, being together, what they can do and what they’re capable of doing, I just want everybody to be their self and that’s why I feel like everything will start flowing. Everybody will have confidence to catch and shoot, make the extra pass, but just playing the game the right way.”
No matter how talented everyone is, it will always take some time for everyone to adjust to playing with someone like Doncic. But this Lakers roster has a lot of high IQ players as well as role players who understand their strengths and they will simply have to come together to reach their potential, which Reaves feels will come sooner rather than later.
Austin Reaves believes Lakers are creating quality shots
The Lakers’ offensive struggles were the reason they fell to the Hornets as they mustered just 97 points. But Austin Reaves believes the team is creating open looks and doesn’t expect himself or Luka Doncic to have more rough shooting nights like he did on Wednesday.
“I think the shots that we’re getting are quality shots,” Reaves said. “I don’t think we’ve made them at a pace that we would like to or we feel like we’re capable of. I haven’t shot the ball well last couple games. Luka [Doncic], obviously, there’s not many games where he shoots whatever he was tonight, 4-for-15 or 5-for-18, like that doesn’t happen a lot. One-for-9 from three. He’s a good shooter. Rui [Hachimura] 1-for-8. He’s also a really good shooter. So we’ll live with the shots that were taken because I believe that they’re good shots.”
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