The NBA season is officially here with the Los Angeles Lakers kicking off preseason action on Friday night against the Phoenix Suns. Austin Reaves was a player who impressed with 20 points on 6-for-11 from the field in 21 minutes in a game with not a lot of positives for L.A.
Obviously, it is preseason and process matters more than results. The Lakers looked like a team with new pieces to integrate and missing two stars in LeBron James and Luka Doncic.
Moving forward, hopefully, the Lakers can establish an identity offensively and defensively. From Reaves’ perspective, he believes the team needs to compete harder and pay attention to the details moving forward in preseason but understands it’s still very early.
“I’ve been a part of [preseason], this is now five times, you understand that it’s not going to be perfect the first go around. The expectation of being perfect, we have a ways to get there and we know that,” Reaves said. “Like JJ (Redick) said, he was looking for three things and those things are not uncontrollables, they are controllables. In spurts, we were doing that and in spurts we weren’t. We just got to compete a little harder, pay a little bit more attention to the details and we’ll be fine.”
This is the first game action players have participated in, so rust is expected to come with that. But, Reaves looked aggressive and got to his spots with ease. With that, he shared he felt good out on the court despite not playing live basketball for awhile.
“Yeah, it felt good,” Reaves said. “Just enjoy playing basketball, Greg (St. Jean) told me twice already that I look quick and that might’ve been the two only times I’ve ever been told that. So, it feels good, but just happy to be out there playing basketball again with these guys.”
Seeing how Reaves has embraced being an on-ball creator is impressive as he looks comfortable orchestrating offense and creating for himself. If the regular season started right now, he showed he would be ready to play.
When the Arkansas native is the lone ball-handler, he has proven time and time again that it is not a daunting challenge for him. Hopefully, James and Doncic can suit up at least once or twice this preseason so Reaves sees what his offensive role will be moving forward, but regardless, he is clearly a player they will be counting on this season.
Austin Reaves thought Anthony Davis was joking with Lakers players
The Luka Doncic trade is immortalized as the craziest blockbuster deal in league history. So much so that when the news broke, seemingly no one believed it was real.
Anthony Davis broke the news to his teammates, but Austin Reaves revealed he thought he was joking at the time given his prankster personality.
Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? It’s the best way to watch player interviews, exclusive coverage from events, participate in live shows, and more!
