The Los Angeles Lakers have rebounded in a strong way from their poor start to the season. A big part of that has been their trade deadline acquisitions of D'Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt. But a lot of their improved play has also come from internal development. Second-year wing Austin Reaves has been having an incredible season especially within the last few games as the Lakers try and keep pace in the Western Conference playoff race. Reaves played for Lon Kruger at the University of Oklahoma and this week Kruger appeared on SiriusXM NBA Radio discussing Reaves ultimate ceiling in the NBA.
Lon Kruger, who coached Austin Reaves at Oklahoma, always knew he had star potential #LakeShow | š 17x Champions pic.twitter.com/6x4Sywihbf
ā SiriusXM NBA Radio (@SiriusXMNBA) March 25, 2023
āHe's a much better defender than what maybe people projected coming out of college,ā Lon Kruger said. āHe takes good angles, he knows what the offensive guy wants to do, he's got a good feel for all of that. And he just consistently improved his shooting. After his second year, he actually transferred into Oklahoma after two years at Wichita State where he was mostly a catch and shoot guy. . .he took that redshirt year and really worked on his game. He worked hard every day in practice, he put the ball on the floor. I think during that year, that was probably the most important year in his development and he took full advantage of it.ā
This season Austin Reaves has been averaging 12.3 points per game, 3.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists with shooting splits of 52 percent from the field, 38.3 percent from the three-point line and 85.8 percent from the free-throw line.
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