Austin Reaves free agency: His stock and potential destinations
Reaves’ ability to fit anywhere should make just about every team with cap space this summer interested in him. Those teams include Houston, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Charlotte, San Antonio, and Utah. While they have the means to make him a significant offer, there are several barriers that could prevent them from successfully acquiring him.
His restricted free agency status is already a strong enough boundary to keep Reaves in Los Angeles. In recent years, teams have been less incentivized than ever to sign restricted free agents to offer sheets. Part of it could be how an offer sheet could keep the offering team’s books frozen for up to three days, meaning they could miss out on free agent opportunities. And with information flowing quicker than ever, teams should have enough intel ahead of time to know if their offer sheet will get matched.
But the other complicating factor that could ultimately keep Reaves a Laker is the Gilbert Arenas provision. Other teams with cap space could sign Reaves to a deal beyond the four-year, $50 million contract the Lakers are limited to offering him. The Arenas provision was implemented to give teams like the Lakers a chance to match offer sheets they normally cannot sign their Early Bird restricted free agents to.
Theoretically, another team can offer Reaves a maximum of four years projected at $98.7 million. This structure would have him earning the non-taxpayer mid-level exception amount for the first two seasons, followed by a maximum salary amount in the final two. The last time we saw a player get an Arenas provision offer sheet was Tyler Johnson by Brooklyn in 2016, which Miami matched.
There could be teams willing to offer Reaves a significant offer sheet if they feel that he will meet the value of the salary spike that comes in the backend of the deal. The question then becomes what number is the sweet spot where the salaries in the last two years make sense for the offering team, while also getting the Lakers hesitant to match. But given how uncommon this offer sheet is, history suggests it’s unlikely we see one given out this summer.