It was just over a month ago when the OKC Thunder hosted Austin Reaves and the Los Angeles Lakers for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. For much of the series, OKC defenders put Reaves in a blender, leaving him desperate for answers.
Now, the former Sooner is expected to decline his player option and demand a max contract, as if he thinks the world has seemingly forgotten what happened in Bricktown.
The deal would put him at around five years, $241 million if he were to rejoin the Lakers, which would establish him as one of the top earners in the league. Such a contract would earn him more than players like Cade Cunningham, Donovan Mitchell, and Anthony Edwards on a yearly basis.
This is coming on the heels of his Conference Semifinals performance, where he averaged just 20.8 points on 42.6 percent shooting while giving the ball away 5.5 times per game in the clean sweep. Unfortunately for Reaves, his showing may have been even worse than the numbers implied. Throughout the series, he appeared visually rattled, constantly playing out of control, then complaining to the refs when they didn't bail him out with foul calls.
On the defensive side of the basketball, he was even worse. The Thunder consistently targeted him, switching him into iso situations whenever they could and driving right past him like he was a traffic cone.
Thunder may have played Reaves out of his desired payday
Reaves averaged 23.3 points per game during the regular season. His efficiency was impressive. 49.0 percent from the floor, 36.0 percent from the perimeter, and 87.1 percent from the line are all respectable metrics. But they hardly make him a shoo-in for the lucrative deal he is insisting upon.
Now with a playoff disappearing act inked onto his resume, it's nearly impossible to justify putting him in the same conversation as the other stars making similar money.
His 2025-26 postseason also marks the second straight in which he shot under 42.0 percent from the field. Now that his defensive ineptitude has been exposed, a long-term pairing with fellow one-way player Luka Doncic feels downright irresponsible.
With LeBron mulling his options over, the Lakers' 2026-27 roster makeup looks murky at best. If they indeed wish to build a championship team around Doncic, breaking the bank on Reaves simply doesn't feel like the smartest move, especially after he has proved incapable of rising to the occasion in crunch time.
When all is said and done, Los Angeles could have OKC to thank for avoiding such a catastrophic commitment.
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