The Lakers have agreed to a four-year, $185 million contract extension with Austin Reaves that will ideally keep him in Los Angeles until the end of the 2029-30 season. The team apparently went over the top to convince Reaves that Los Angeles was his home.
However, the former NBA champion, Iman Shumpert, did not seem very impressed with the figure that the Lakers agreed on with Reaves. He raised his concerns on ESPN when the news broke regarding the Lakers’ defense and the impact of this on their ability to bring back LeBron James in free agency.
“I thought it was odd that you signed with that much money to sign a guy that you know was having issues defensively. We all knew that,” Shumpert initially questioned. The Lakers have previously claimed that they are not worried about this backcourt duo’s defensive woes.
“I do now understand it now that you’ve let me know that Detroit was going to knock at his door. Reaves going to Detroit makes a lot of sense, so I understand their move to say let’s keep our guy,” Shumpert further added.
“When I saw [Chris] Cenac just sitting there during the draft, I was thinking interior defense, rim protection, and you needed a big guy who has a presence and good hands; he was sitting right there. So it was an interesting pick they made last night,” Shumpert said as he questioned the Lakers’ draft pick, Cameron Carr.
“But now I’m excited to see what LeBron will do, because we don’t know and I have no insight,” said Shumpert while cleverly dodging the follow-up questions that the panel would have since he just went on a vacation with LeBron James and the 2016 Cavaliers team.
Even though James is eligible for a three-year, $182 million extension with the Lakers, the ground reality will be drastically different in terms of what teams are willing to offer a 41-year-old veteran. The Lakers prioritized extending Reaves’ contract over retaining James.
Subsequently, the Bulls, the Nets, and the Pistons emerged as teams realistically interested in getting Reaves. While talking to Dan Woike of The Athletic, Austin Reaves acknowledged that he thought it was a realistic possibility that he would head to another team.
“A couple of times, actually,” Reaves said. “I didn’t know how negotiations would go. I don’t think Aaron and Reggie really knew how negotiations would go, so we learned a lot throughout the process. But like I said, we wanted to be in L.A., my heart was in L.A., and we got it done.”
Bringing Reaves back was the biggest objective of this offseason for the Lakers in terms of building a championship-contending roster around Luka Doncic.
The Lakers guard carried their offense during the 2025-26 regular season, especially when Doncic was not healthy. He ended the season averaging 23.3 points, 5.5 assists, and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 49.0% from the field and 36.0% from beyond the arc.
And no one disagrees that LeBron James would be a critical addition to that championship-contending roster, and arguably the most sought-after free agent this summer.
The Lakers have cleverly only agreed to the extension as of now and have not made it official. Consequently, Reaves will stay in the books under the $21 million cap hold until the time the Lakers figure out what to do with the remaining salary cap space.
Therefore, after all the players with player options in their contracts make their decision, the Lakers should have significant room to negotiate with LeBron James.
However, the ball is still in LeBron James’ court in terms of deciding if he wants to retire, play another season in Los Angeles, or leave to join another team like the Cavaliers, the Heat, or the Warriors. All three teams cannot be ruled out as a possibility just yet.
We previously knew that the only condition under which James would reportedly take a pay cut is if the Lakers show him the roadmap they have in mind to contend for a championship. So we can expect his decision to be delayed as much as possible since LeBron James could wait for the Lakers to construct their full roster with the tremendous amount of cap space they had initially.
But with the large contract given to Reaves, it may be tricky to build a solid roster around them. Hence, it will be fascinating to see what the extension for Reaves means for LeBron James’ free agency negotiations.
