Austin Reaves a restricted free agent this summer

[Street Hunger]

Lakers guard Austin Reaves is a restricted free agent this summer.

What kind of deal should he receive?

The Lakers are strongly expected to try to keep him.

[GimmeThat]

less than Matthew Dellavedova, maybe somewhere along the line of Boban?

[highwhey]

Can you guys break down your proposed salary in terms of BK Whoppers so fatrick can understand?

[Axe]

Can you guys break down your proposed salary in terms of BK Whoppers so fatrick can understand?
:milton

[ImKobe]

It's an interesting situation.

Other teams are in a position to screw the Lakers long-term on this Reaves thing since they know the Lakers can't afford to let him walk.




The 2005 CBA rectified things (to a point) by creating the Gilbert Arenas Provision. This gives incumbent teams a far greater opportunity at retaining players who are now classified as Arenas restricted free agents.

In order for a player to be an Arenas free agent, they must be coming off their first or second year in the NBA and they must be given a qualifying offer and made a restricted free agent. When a player is an Arenas free agent, opposing teams can still offer whatever salary they are able to give, but the incumbent team is given an avenue to match the offer.

What happens in these offers is that the first-year salary for an Arenas free agent is limited to either the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (NTMLE) or what a team can match using their Early Bird exception. It’s important to note that this only applies to players who are Early Bird free agents. If they are non-Bird, then the incumbent team is limited to using the NTMLE to match.

That results in what is often referred to as a “poison pill” structure for a contract. For example, here’s what a four-year, $80 million offer sheet to an Arenas free agent would look like this offseason in terms of salary structure:

2023-24: $11,368,000
2024-25: $11,936,400
2025-26: $27,724,010
2026-27: $28,971,590
Total: four years, $80,000,000


SIGNING WITH ANOTHER TEAM AS A RESTRICTED FREE AGENT
This is where the Arenas Provision comes into play. We used $80 million as our example to explain the Arenas Provision, but that’s probably a little rich for Austin Reaves. But could an average salary of $15 million, for a total of $60 million, be in play? We’ve seen shooters get paid handsomely in the past. Shooters who can do a little more? Those guys always get paid.

If Reaves got a $60 million offer sheet over four years, here’s how that could look given the Arenas Provision:

2023-24: $11,368,000
2024-25: $11,936,400
2025-26: $17,944,059
2026-27: $18,751,542
Total: four years, $60,000,000
Remember: This is the actual salary structure. The Lakers could choose to match this structure using the NTMLE and assume the above as cap hits each season.

For the team signing Reaves to an offer sheet, they would assume the average-salary structure above as the cap hits for each season. That would look like this:

2023-24: $15,000,000
2024-25: $15,000,000
2025-26: $15,000,000
2026-27: $15,000,000
Total: four years, $60,000,000
(Note: The Lakers could also use Early Bird rights to match the salary structure for Reaves. That structure would look a lot like the one laid out under the Early Bird section, but with a similar bump from Year 2 to Year 3 in an Arenas offer sheet match.)

https://www.spotrac.com/news/next-contract-series-austin-reaves-1816/

This article was before the Playoffs, so I imagine teams would offer him more than a 60M contract at this point.

[BarberSchool]

Jazz & Celtics will both overpay for the next great white hype !
Reaves is gonna get stupid paid.

[DMAVS41]

It's an interesting situation.

Other teams are in a position to screw the Lakers long-term on this Reaves thing since they know the Lakers can't afford to let him walk.



https://www.spotrac.com/news/next-contract-series-austin-reaves-1816/

This article was before the Playoffs, so I imagine teams would offer him more than a 60M contract at this point.

What is the max another team can offer Reaves?

I ask because I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Lakers can stagger the pay to where the yearly salary increases over the 4 years so he won't be taking up as much cap early on. Also, if the max he can get is like 100 million from another team...again, I don't know what it actually is, but that seems reasonable...I'm not sure that is enough to "screw" the Lakers given where the salary cap is headed.

[ImKobe]

What is the max another team can offer Reaves?

I ask because I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Lakers can stagger the pay to where the yearly salary increases over the 4 years so he won't be taking up as much cap early on. Also, if the max he can get is like 100 million from another team...again, I don't know what it actually is, but that seems reasonable...I'm not sure that is enough to "screw" the Lakers given where the salary cap is headed.

Yeah I believe it's 98.6, so he could make 36-38 million per year in his last 2.

I said "screw" because Lakers right now can only offer him 4 years/51M, so another team can just offer him the 98.6M contract, just so the Lakers wouldn't have extra cap space down the line.


Reaves falls under a strange loophole in the league's collective bargaining agreement nicknamed the Arenas provision.

Players who enter this category are limited in their salaries over the first two years of their new deal and can be paid their maximum salary in Years 3 and 4. That backloaded structure is referred to as a poison pill contract.

For Reaves, that means that the maximum he can earn on an offer from a rival team breaks down as such:

Year 1: $11.4 million
Year 2: $11.9 million
Year 3: $36.8 million
Year 4: $38.5 million
That deal would pay him a little over $98 million. Again, if Reaves does receive an offer up to $98 million from another team, the Lakers can still match it and keep him on the roster.

[lxlHoTsAuSelxl]

Comes down to if he is worth 100m for 4yrs. Atleast the first two is about 12m. LeBron is off the books by then. Reeves might not be a all-star level player but he is efficient as ****. Seems like everytime I check his stats I see 7-11fg 3-5threes 6-6fta and this is only his second year. Dlo was getting 32-33m and lost his starting spot for game 4 vs Denver. He is legit 3rd option, "I'm Him!", pay HillBilly Kobe.

[Jasper]

Jazz & Celtics will both overpay for the next great white hype !
Reaves is gonna get stupid paid.

they can have Grayson Allan

three team deal in the making.. lol

[AlternativeAcc.]

I don't like white players unless they're transcendent like Jokic, Luka, Bird...

Especially those who benefit from the LeBron limelight. It's one thing if you're a 3 point specialist, but Reaves seems to have a black skillset. That never works as a role player if you're white.