LOS ANGELES – As the Los Angeles Lakers prepared to face off against the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday, much of the chatter pregame was still on Austin Reaves’ incredible performance from the night before when he dropped a career-high 51 points against the Sacramento Kings in a win. Reaves stepped in in the absence of the Lakers’ main stars in LeBron James and Luka Doncic.
However, during his pregame press conference, Lakers head coach JJ Redick acknowledged that Austin Reaves has just as much say on the team as James and Doncic. In the offseason, one of the ways that Redick challenged Reaves was in taking on more of a leadership role.
“The biggest thing was him taking a step forward as a leader and recognizing that it’s as much his team as it is LeBron’s team or Luka’s team. And acknowledging that he does have innate natural leadership skills, and being able to tap into those more consistently,” Redick said.
“I told him he’s out of excuses. You’re no longer the undrafted guy who’s a young player who’s unproven. You’re one of the guys now, and he’s been very responsive to that,” Redick continued “I think in his preseason, his September, so far in the regular season, I’ve just seen a lot of growth there from him.”
Before Luka Doncic was sidelined due to multiple injury issues, he was off to a torrid start to the season for the Lakers. But Reaves had been off to a strong start too, overshadowed a little by Doncic’s back-to-back 40+ point games. Then came Sunday night against the Kings when Reaves showed what he’s capable of when he’s the primary offense option.
Through the Lakers’ first three games of the season, Reaves is averaging 34.0 points, 7.7 rebounds, 9.7 assists and 1.3 steals with splits of 56.6 percent shooting from the field, 45 percent shooting from the three-point line and 89.2 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
As his averages show, it isn’t just scoring in which Reaves impacts the game. When he dropped 51 points, he also added 11 rebounds and nine assists. Redick admitted that Reaves is able to do things on the court that he was never able to do when was still playing.
“He’s a better player than I ever was. There’s certain things you do in basketball where I can’t coach you on, there’s just not. I didn’t have the game that he had,” Redick said. “There’s other things I can coach you on. And I think his willingness to just be coached from the first day that I got this job to today, every day he’s just wiling to be coached. And it’s been awesome.”
