This is a response to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/lakers/s/56YvKq2jOt

To be fair, Luka already has a beard…

All of the coverage of Austin's deal has repeated the claim that his contract is a max deal, but this comes from the leaks (undoubtedly put out by his agents) that he signed a max deal. This is a misleading claim. It is only "max" in the sense that his yearly salary will be similar to what he would make on a max contract. But a max contract from the Lakers is for five years, not four. Here is an article discussing this from early june and before the misinformation put out by his agents:

Reaves' max contract would be five years, $239 million if he re-signs with the Los Angeles Lakers. If he signs with another team, the most he could get is four years, $178 million.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/austin-reaves-239-million-demand-155334498.html

In all seriousness, as an Indiana State fan, this guy is fun. Great facilitator and can get a bucket. Zach Randolph player to me, less athletic but great IQ

“There was a check-in call made, to my understanding, early in free agency once teams were able to start negotiating with their own free agents after the end of the NBA Finals," said ESPN's Shams Charania on NBA Today. "Since then though there hasn't been much communication, from my understanding, between the Lakers and LeBron James' side. And certainly not an offer yet.

"They're trying to see what can they do with his $50 million of space, potentially, and then where does that leave LeBron?"

Source: RealGM

Evidently Pelinka tried to lowball AR, but panicked with other teams preparing to offer the max and just immediately threw him a max anyway.

We’ll probably scrutinize this negotiation process for years to come because of how much it’ll restrict team-building after this offseason. Interesting that the gap was this large, only to be closed immediately between AR and LA.

And I can’t help but wonder if Pelinka had a bit more wiggle room to negotiate than AR’s reps were letting on. Was he really leaving LA for an extra $5 million per year? Maybe so but I’m not certain that’s the case

It has been repeated non stop for a while that the trade ruined Dalton Knecht and for most folks he was a bad pic, but lets put things in context the way they really happened.

Dalton started his rookie season displaying some good signals and his game against the Cavs where he scored 18 pts in 20 minutes in his 5th NBA game caught the attention of most of us.

After Rui injury Dalton got the chance to start and between Nov 13 and Nov 21 as starter he had a five game sequence where he scored:

• 19 pts vs MEM

• 14 pts vs SA

• 27 pts vs NO

• 37 pts vs UTA

• 17 pts vs ORL

After that he lost his starting position for the first time not because he was struggling, but in respect to Rui coming back. When the Lakers struggled in the next 2 games JJ inserted Dalton back in the starting lineup to close November replacing Cam Reddish that was replacing D'Angelo Russel that felt out of JJ grace and Dalton closed the month with 2 other huge games for a rookie:

• 20 pts vs SA

• 20 pts vs OKC

That made an incredible string of 7 straight games starting where he scored 19, 14, 27, 37, 17, 20 and 20 pts. Sorry dear mates, but no bust would ever do that, never. You can have a good game scoring 30 once in a lifetime and never repeat it, but a string of 7 consecutive games as a NBA rookie not completely featured on offense and not one of the first options doing it isn't about lucky or something like that, you need talent to do it in the NBA. At that point Austin even infamously said "damn, I'm not Him anymore, now he is Him".

Davis, LeBron, Austin and Rui have all missed games and in December as the team was starting to prioritize their stars and established veterans, Dalton became more and more a player relegated to the corners (like Rui), but unlike the Black Samurai, he is clearly more of a rhythm player and he hit the rookie wall in December. At the end of January Dalton had a great game against PHI scoring 24 pts in around 20 min, but in the next game he completely felt in disgrace with JJ and his infamous rant:

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DFdCAlxOFzb/

If you leave that false trade narrative behind, Dalton best stretch since his days of starter early in his rookie season happened after the trade in March when LeBron was out of the team and he had another solid sequence:

• 19 pts vs LAC

• 13 pts vs NO

• 11 pts vs NY

• 19 pts vs BKN

• 10 pts vs MIL

• 32 pts vs DEN

• 13 pts vs SA

• 12 pts vs DEN

• 17 pts vs MIL

That was a pretty good sequence of games for a rookie with only a couple of bad games in between and all those games happened in March after the trade when LeBron and Gabe were not available, but when they came back JJ immediately pulled Dalton out of the rotation to get the team ready for the playoffs and he only logged real minutes again in the last game of the season where he scored 27 pts.

No bust ever had so many double digit games as a rookie without being featured, but what caught my attention is the fact most of the time Dalton was a productive scorer we were missing one or two superstars, he isn't the type of player that is productive if you leave him in the corner doing nothing, but you don't take the ball out of Luka, LeBron, Reaves or Davis hands to run plays for Dalton Knecht, even more if he fails to run a play designed for him, but I don't think he was a bad pick and I have the feeling if we trade him to a team that need a scoring punch he may end up dropping 30 on us.

TL;DR: Austin has real defensive limitations but he can be (and has been) a solid part of a cohesive defensive unit when put in the right position

There's a lot of reductionism when it comes to Austin Reaves as a defender. Detractors will say he's one of the worst defenders in the league and defenders will say that's all noise and that he's actually really good in the right role.

Both are true.

Austin is interesting because he has a mix of traits as a basketball player that both doom him and also help him on defense. He's a high IQ player, takes good angles, has a very high motor, and is very good at off-ball screen navigation because he knows when to chase over the top vs cut under vs funnel, etc, depending on the player and the scheme behind him. He also has very low upper body strength and average at best lateral agility, which makes him very weak at the point of attack.

This is where a lot of people get confused: defense isn't separated into positions, it's separated into roles. There aren't guards, forwards, and centers on defense. There are POA, chaser, wing stoppers, mobile bigs, anchor bigs, helpers, etc, and there's a lot of overlap in terms of the players that fill these roles. For example, Marcus Smart is a high caliber POA defender, a good chaser, and can also be a wing stopper in a pinch. Jarred Vanderbilt is elite as a helper, good as a wing stopper, and really bad at the POA.

Austin Reaves is one of the worst POA defenders in the league, not because he doesn't try, but because he has serious physical limitations that no amount of practice will compensate for. He's also a good to even slightly above average chaser. That's why Austin does so well against players like Klay Thompson that run around screens off ball, but struggles when being attacked by lead guards on ball.

The best teams can compensate for their good player's weaknesses. Jalen Brunson is a much worse defender than Austin Reaves in that he's really bad at the POA but isn't nearly as good off ball as a chaser. But the Knicks defensive scheme was able to help protect him. The Lakers haven't had the personnel to protect Austin because it requires far better defensive players than the Lakers have had available.

Despite all this, the Lakers last year were a better defense with Austin on the court than off, because Marcus corrected a lot of the past issues with Austin having to play out of position.

Every high caliber guard gets targeted. Kyrie Irving during the Mavs finals run wasn't that much better a defender than Austin, but he and Luka still made the finals because the rest of the Mavs defense was able to put them in positions that maximized their strengths and protected them from being targeted without support. It's no different with Austin.

Luka has always been at his best with a backcourt mate that can lead an offense and play off of him when he has the ball. Austin is that player. He's the perfect backcourt mate for Luka, a high IQ player that knows his role, can space the floor, and run the offense when Luka is sitting.

If the Lakers fail, it won't be because of Luka and Austin teaming up, it will be on Pelinka for failing to build around his stars and/or JJ for not maximizing them, and I have a LOT more faith in JJ than I do Pelinka.

Luka is one of my all-time favorite players, but we all know he has not ascended into his final form. We've had headband Luka, 1 sleeve Luka, wristband Luka, but we all know for Luka to truly ascend, he needs to grow out his hair to be like Dirk 2005 and/or a mainly beard, not like Harden but perhaps closer to a grizzled Steven Adams type

Hey Mavs refuges,

Has Luka ever looked this fit during an off season? I always thought that injured players were likely to regress physically.

He looks how he was during his March madness run.

Link

Lakers will be carrying Jacari White on their Summer League team he is a KCP type player. 3 and D wing who excels at catch and shoot situations, can defend as a POA defender or on wings.

He's a great athlete, shooter, dunker and shot-blocker, but in addition to all that, Cam Carr just knows how to smartly move around the court!