Luka Doncic and the Lakers faced significant criticism due to the noticeable lack of their superstar's efforts on the defensive end of the floor. Austin Reaves, his teammate, believes that the criticism is unwarranted and factually incorrect. He appeared for an interview with Trevor Lane of Lakers' Nation and expressed how the media misunderstood the Lakers' defensive skills. He was asked what he feels about his pairing with Doncic.
“It brings so much chaos offensively, obviously because you got two guys that are—obviously I’m not putting myself in Luka’s category because he’s a top-3 player in the NBA. But it brings two guys at the 1 and 2, then you obviously have Bron too, that are willing passers and create chaos on defense. So therefore, I think it’s gonna be tough for teams to stay in front of us, and I feel we can get good looks on every possession. And then defensively, we just had to lock down and just be with it mentally every possession. Right after the trade, I think for a month or two months, I think we were a Top-5 defense in the NBA. So we’ve shown that we can do that, we just got to continue to grow our schemes and how we want to do that, be smart with all that.”
“Everybody likes to blow things out of proportion. I think when you become a really good defense, it’s not about one individual defender guarding the ball. It’s about everybody that’s locked into the rotations--- To be honest, there’s so much talent in the league. You look at players that are first, second team All-Defense, and they get blown by some of the time, too. So you gotta be in situations where if that does happen, then you have to be connected every single possession.”
Austin Reaves Feels Lakers Threw 6'10" Player "Under The Bus" In Search For New Center
Among their free agency goals, the Lakers wished to add an athletic, lob-threat big to fit alongside Luka Doncic. But Reaves felt that these rumors completely ignored that Jaxson Hayes, a significant lob threat on the Lakers, was completely left out of consideration.
Reaves felt that the Lakers threw him under the bus by initiating a conversation to bring on a new center to the team. He said that while the team may benefit by bringing on another style of center, Hayes has everything the Lakers presently need.
“When you get so quick to just throw people under the bus, like people have thrown Jaxson [Hayes] under the bus. When Jaxson, in that first month when Luka got there, Jaxson was one of our most important players, playing at such a high level. Obviously, when you have a couple of games that don’t go your way and rotations twist and change, then everybody wants to jump down and be like ‘Jaxson is horrible’ but everyone forgets about that couple of months stretch where he was one of our best players. But I think it’s just having another form of big, like having kind of a different look, you know, Jaxson is the lob threat, very athletic, isn’t that physical but can make up for it in different ways.”
Following the Lakers' embarrassing first-round exit from the NBA Playoffs, their front office faced three significant challenges concerning each of their 'big three' players: LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves. For Doncic, it is his contract extension and adding the necessary pieces on the roster to build around him for the long-term future. The addition of new players was dependent on two key factors concerning both James and Reaves.
Primarily, James' player option decision would decide their financial capabilities in the free-agency market. And Reaves, with his contract situation, was rumored to have become the most likely candidate to be traded from the Lakers this season. Now that Reaves has indicated his intention to stay with the Lakers for life if possible, it will be interesting to see how the Lakers make room to improve their roster without trading James, Doncic, or Reaves, their core.
