Lakers Free Agency BOMBSHELL: Austin Reaves $40M Deal?! BYE Lebron

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]So Jovon Buha, the Lakers beat reporter with connections to the Lakers, he's been reporting on the Lakers for a while, worked for ESPN before, Fox Sports, worked at the Athletic as well, has come out and reported that the primary target of the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency is actually Austin Reeves over LeBron James, and they're willing to pay him $40 million a season. Let's talk about it.

[00:00:39]So, there's news that come came out.

[00:00:41]It's reported um all over the place right now. NBA Central is reporting it.

[00:00:45]Yahoo Sports is reporting it. Um other uh sources are reporting it as well. So the main story here is Jovan Buha who's the uh beat reporter for the Los Angeles Lakers has been for multiple years now uh supposedly has inside information um and you know gets regular tips from people inside the uh the organization about the moves, what's happening, what they might be doing and all that other stuff. Now, he's reporting uh reported on his podcast that the Los Angeles Lakers are looking more favorably and prioritizing Austin Reeves as a free agent um as a free agent to to to sign him because he's a long-term asset instead of a a a stop gap, you could say, with LeBron James. Because with LeBron James, you never know. They might sign him for 40, 50 million. Maybe he'll play one season. Maybe he'll play half the season because he'll sit out and load manage with an injury for the half a season. They don't know. So, they don't want to deal with that crap, I guess. And they're prioritizing Austin Reeves, who's young, who is on the uh uh on the uptrend, has been playing great and fit well with Luca Donuch. Of course, he's a defensive liability to a degree, the same as Luca Donic. If they sign him and sign Luca, I wouldn't necessarily sign LeBron James anymore, but just try to use the money left over to build a defensive team around these guys and maybe get somebody that could score a couple more buckets as well. Um, but I would definitely not go for LeBron James. So, let me let let me let you listen to the clip from Jovan Buha where he says this and then I'm also going to show you another clip uh from uh Carton re reacting to this and he's super super happy with this news as am I because if the Lakers finally move on from LeBron James, they will be a joy to watch again. Even if they stink for a year or two, I don't care as long as the the the circus and the drama is out of there and uh and that's it. So, we'll be happy.

[00:02:49]So, here is Joan Buha in his own words.

[00:02:53]Uh, notorious CRG, uh, thank you for the super chat. I don't know if you've already covered this, but do you think it's fair to ask LeBron to take less money than AR in order for them to both be there?

[00:03:05]I've not answered this and and let's dive into this. So, I I have covered earlier in the show. I was asked about that, you know, whether it's fair to ask LeBron to take a pay cut in general. And the thing that I laid out with this is that LeBron is worth I I think 40 4550. You you want to put like argue that he's worth that based on his production, based on his performance this this past season. He was an all-star. He helped the Lakers win a playoff series as the lead guy. Put them on his back.

[00:03:40]LeBron is not worth 40 $50 million. Even with his production from last season, he got his production because he was stat patting a lot of times in games during the season where he was out there with the Lakers being up 15, 18 points with four, three minutes remaining just getting his stuff. I mean, there was a situation with Austin Reeves where he screamed at him because he wanted to get a triple double and Austin Reeves grabbed the rebound that he needed to get that triple double. So, LeBron James will have his stats no matter what. But he doesn't affect you winning games that much anymore. He's not worth 40, $50 million. There's no question. I do not agree with that. There's no freaking way.

[00:04:32]Simple as that. He put them on his back.

[00:04:35]Are you serious? They barely won in six games against a team that had no point guard and no Kevin Durant.

[00:04:45]None of those no point guard, no Kevin Durant. They were good defensive team and they still took him to six. They almost had a seventh game and LeBron James made some huge mistakes. Everybody showing the highlight of him tying the game with that three, getting it to overtime.

[00:05:05]But he and his two turnovers in the end of that game led to them being in that position.

[00:05:12]You show the highlight, you don't show what led up to it. It's it's BS. You can say like he is worth somewhere in that range. I I do not disagree. I think the issue is based on the Lakers finances and and based on their current cap situation and Austin being a long-term piece and LeBron not being a long-term piece, that's where they just are in the situation where to add to the roster, they need to shed salary. And now there's other like they can be more aggressive and be like we want to get off Vando, we want to get off Jake, but that's going to cost you draft capital and that means because they have limited draft capital that means you don't have that draft capital to upgrade the roster via trade necessarily depending on how much you are giving up. So I think right now the the central thing with the LeBron conversation is LeBron believes he's worth x amount of money and he is worth x amount of money. The issue is for the Lakers. If they pay him X amount of money, they are going to be hamstrung in terms of adding to the roster. Again, LeBron James only cares about LeBron James. He always will think he's worth all the money he could possibly get, the absolute max. He'd be 50 years old producing 15 points, but with his aura, he'd tell you he's worth 50 million. You know what I'm saying? So that's that's LeBron James. You don't even look at that cuz the guy doesn't live in reality anymore. Um the Lakers, if they're stupid enough to actually pay him that much money and and sacrifice building out the team around Luca and waste another year with Luca and waste another year with Austin.

[00:07:00]That would be one of the dumbest moves cuz they'll be stuck with Bronnie.

[00:07:04]They'll be stuck with the drama, the circus, half the season missed with, you know, phantom injuries because he's got a load managed so he can play in the playoffs and all that. It's just not worth it for the Lakers. Move on. Like Byron Scott said, move on from this guy.

[00:07:19]End it. The sooner you move on, the sooner you can move forward and potentially even lo like there's a version of I mean maybe if they operate above the cap, they can keep everybody.

[00:07:31]Maybe they lose Marcus, but just imagine for a second like they pay LeBron 50, 55, 60, whatever. They keep Ruie and then they lose Marcus and they add one player with the non-axpayer MLE and it's like, is that player even better than Marcus to begin with? I I don't know. I can't tell you without knowing who that player is. But if you basically run it back with this year's group plus maybe the 25 pick and then you swap out Marcus for a a a similar player or maybe even like a little bit of a better player, is that group meaningfully better? I would argue no. And there's still some risk of like LeBron in my opinion did slip a little bit compared to last season. He was not the same player overall. I I thought the jumper wasn't the same. The handle wasn't the same. the ability to score in isolation was not the same as last year when he finished sixth in MVP, sixth in all NBA. Like he his highs to me were not as high as last season's highs. So even if we dock him like 3 to 5% going into next season, which I think is a realistic assumption here that he'll still be an all-star level guy, still be in that top 30 conversation or whatever, but I think just naturally father time is going to continue to take away a little bit from him.

[00:08:48]If you're saying like LeBron maybe isn't the same, let's just say Luca and Austin are the same and you potentially have a worse roster, like what what you know what are we talking about here? Like it's a worse group and you're you're going to probably lose in round two again. So that's I think the central tension with the LeBron conversation. Now here's the final thing. The biggest difference I would say I mean the there's two big differences between LeBron and Austin right now. One, LeBron is a short-term solution. Austin is viewed by the franchise as a long-term cornerstone.

[00:09:21]So, if it comes down to would you rather pay Austin40 million for the next 5 years or LeBron 40 million for one year, they're going to prioritize the long-term contract here. So, that that's like Austin is more of a priority for the Lakers than LeBron is. That's just a fact. So, that that's one part of it.

[00:09:40]The second part of it is that Austin is going to have a market and LeBron, maybe he wants to go to Chicago or Brooklyn. I I do not foresee that. But the issue with LeBron is that all of the teams that are going to want LeBron are going to have somewhere between the a vet minimum offer and a non- taxpayer MLE offer. So LeBron can't leverage the market against the Lakers the same way Austin can. Austin can go get a monster contract offer from Chicago or a monster contract offer from Brooklyn and put pressure on the Lakers to be like, "They're about to pay me $40 million annually. You need, you know, maybe I'll take a haircut off of that, but you need to give me that fifth year and it needs to be pretty close to 40 million." LeBron is not going to have the same leverage. Like so on some level I think it's really a leverage thing where um Austin has leverage in terms of being a long-term piece for the franchise where LeBron is at most a two-year piece, not you know one to two-year piece. And then Austin could actually go out and get a max offer from people that LeBron is just not going to go get because he doesn't want to go play in Brooklyn or Chicago and he doesn't really fit their timeline either. So, that's where I think that the the the key thing is like it's not about like who's better or or who is better for next season. It's about like longer term the Lakers want to retain Austin and retain that asset and then Austin also is going to have some more competition on the market than LeBron is. Like LeBron can't say, "Oh, the the Cavs are going to pay me $40 million.

[00:11:14]You have to pay me $40 million." That's just not possible. So that's where I I think from a leverage perspective, Austin has more leverage in this situation and Austin I think is going to get a bigger contract with the Lakers because of that.

[00:11:28]>> The Los Angeles Lakers are prioritizing ressigning Austin Reeves over LeBron James.

[00:11:38]>> That's called That's called competent basketball right there. They're going to give Austin Reeds $40 million a year a mistake >> for the next 5 years. Uh and that is a more important deal for them than bringing back the clown show of all flopping uh in LeBron James. Meaning LeBron James will not be a Los Angeles Laker next year.

[00:11:58]>> He will be divorced from his son. I'm not sure how that works itself out and if he's allowed to cut that cord because I'm not sure if Bronny's allowed to do anything without being attached to his pops. At some point as a 20some year old, don't you cry and want to live your own life?

[00:12:14]>> There is no possibility in my mind that the Lakers would look like a smart franchise prioritizing LeBron James or paying him4 to $50 million a season and then screwing themselves for another season just so next off season he can pretty much hold him hostage again. like maybe I'll play, maybe I won't. I'll let you know by July. And the Lakers will be hamstrung again. That's what's going to happen.

[00:12:45]The Lakers will be hamstrung again. And it'll just keep going on and on and on until he finally decides, you know something, maybe I don't want to play anymore five freaking years from now and Lucas Prime is wasted.

[00:12:58]That's what will happen.

[00:13:00]So, I would 100% recommend the Lakers resign Austin, have Luca, take the 50 million, send LeBron James Packin, take the 50 million or 52, whatever he was making, and sign a group of players that could improve this Lakers team defensively greatly and then simply compete cuz they got a lot to a lot of improvement to do to compete, especially with the San Antonio Spurs and still OKC.

[00:13:33]They got a lot to improve. So that's just my opinion. Let me know what you guys think. Like, share, subscribe to the channel. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.