The Summer of Austin Reaves

Austin Reaves stood off to the side as cameras flashed brightly in the distance. He was just out of frame, watching his teammates pose during the Los Angeles Lakers’ media day earlier this month.

LeBron James and Anthony Davis, with 27 All-Star appearances combined, walked in front of a white backdrop, getting ready to take a photo together. Then a cameraman called upon Reaves, a third-year guard who went undrafted out of Oklahoma two summers ago, and signaled for him to join in.

Reaves tried not to crack a smile but admits the significance of the moment was a bit overwhelming. James and Davis didn’t even flinch at the idea that Reaves belonged in the picture. He was no longer fighting just to make it in the NBA. He had arrived. He was undeniably a member of the Lakers’ Big Three.

“I can’t lie,” Reaves says now, on a Tuesday evening in October. “It was a cool moment for me.”

While the significance of the photo op moved Reaves, he wasn’t necessarily awestruck. How could he be, after everything he’s been through this summer? He is no longer a starry-eyed kid just happy to be on the court, playing alongside legends, living out a dream that was born out of a small town in Arkansas. After breaking out for the Lakers last season and during the playoffs, Reaves has had a wild, unforgettable, life-changing offseason. He was one of the most coveted free agents on the market before signing a max four-year, $56 million extension to stay with the Lakers; he was selected to play for Team USA in the 2023 FIBA World Cup in the Philippines and wound up being one of the team’s best players; and he inked a seven-figure sneaker deal with the Chinese brand Rigorer, getting his own signature shoe. It’s not just that he’s a feel-good story exceeding expectations—he’s a star now, too. “I’ve always felt like I’ve belonged,” Reaves says.

Now, the rest of the world knows, too.

But Reaves doesn’t want the Summer of Austin to define him. He wants it to catapult him to the new heights. He thinks there’s another level he can reach this season, and as a by-product, another level the Lakers can ascend to after reaching the Western Conference finals. Reaves came up big, averaging 16.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 4.6 assists while starting all 16 postseason games. “When things are thrown at him, he rises to the occasion,” says Lakers owner and president Jeanie Buss. “He didn’t back down from anything. Nothing intimidated him.”

The Lakers made it a priority to re-sign him this offseason, but it wasn’t a guarantee he would return, with Reaves becoming one of the hottest targets and gaining interest from a number of suitors. Two years ago, teams weren’t rushing to draft him. The Pistons considered him for the no. 42 pick, telling Reaves that they’d draft him and offer him a two-way contract. Reaves bet on himself, however: His camp told the Pistons not to draft him unless they were willing to offer guaranteed money. Austin had faith that he’d find the right fit in terms of potential two-way opportunities, even if that meant going undrafted.

This past summer, he was considered one of the most desired players on the market. With only so many years of James left, the Lakers knew they couldn’t lose their best young player. And during an offseason in which the Lakers had a long checklist, including retaining key rotation players and adding reinforcements, there was no bigger move than re-signing Reaves. “He’s one of my favorite people,” Buss says. “We valued him very highly. We didn’t want to see him go somewhere else.”

“It just felt right,” she says. “Everything came together the way it was supposed to.”

Reaves has tried his best to summarize the magnitude of this summer, what it means for him right now—what it might mean for him in years to come. But he’s reminded of how quickly everything happened. “It was a whirlwind,” he says. His life has changed faster than he ever could have imagined. He felt like he was always somewhere: on this plane, on that court. In that country, in this game. And his life continues to move rapidly, especially with the 2023-24 preseason underway and opening night just days away. He prides himself on living in the moment. However, one of the rare times he did allow himself a little bit of introspection came on Team USA’s plane ride from Las Vegas to Málaga, Spain, for the first stop on its pre–World Cup tour.

This is real, he thought.

He contemplated his path; not the one he has been on, but the one his life is trending toward. He told himself to cherish all that is to come. But he couldn’t allow the thought to swallow him. Distract him from what he truly believes, which is that he is still growing; this isn’t his peak. He’s grateful but not content with his new fortune. He’s acutely aware of his critics.

“All athletes, once you get a good contract, you’re looked at to live up to that, which is understandable,” Reaves says. “You’re getting paid that to be successful. And there’s obviously people out there that think I wasn’t worth that. … You hear those things, and you just [get] fuel off of that.” He remembers each slight.

Reaves isn’t bothered by any of the comments. He’s made a career out of defying others’ expectations. He knows, though, that no matter what he achieves, the doubts about his game will likely never cease. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy, who works with Reaves nearly every day, thinks Reaves actually needs that chip on his shoulder.

“People are going to look at Austin and say, ‘Oh, man. This white kid got paid,’” Handy says. “I think he’s just out to prove that, ‘Look, whatever paycheck I got, I earned this contract.’ And he did.”

“This is not a fluke,” Handy says. “It’s all about just continuing to show people that he wasn’t a one-trick pony. That he’s here to stay.”

Reaves isn’t surprised by the level he’s reached. He’s always carried himself with an uncanny confidence. Back when Austin was a kid, his mother, Nicole Wilkett, noticed his self-assuredness, once asking him: “Is it confidence or cockiness?”

“They’re basically kind of the same thing,” Austin said.

“Well. There’s a fine line,” she said. But perhaps his blurring of the two has been central to his ascent; he had to have that kind of radical belief to make it. Reaves was recently ranked the 66th-best NBA player, per ESPN—ahead of players such as Blazers star rookie Scoot Henderson. “I can say this confidently,” says Spencer, his older brother, “[Austin] would never come out [and say this]. But he would look at the list and be like, ‘I’m actually higher than 66.’”

Reaves’s confidence, though, is grounded in his work ethic. He’s pushing himself to prove that he is who he believes himself to be. His coaches have noticed an uptick in his confidence since he returned from Team USA, too. “Every time he steps on the floor,” Handy says, “he just wants to prove to people in some kind of way: I’m either better than you or I’m as good as you are.”

Reaves says his teammates have also helped increase his level of self-belief. He remembers a conversation with James and Davis after Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Warriors. Reaves had struggled in the Lakers’ blowout win and in the two games prior, still fatigued from the Lakers’ first-round series against the Grizzlies. “I was drained,” Reaves says. “I had to chase [Grizzlies guard] Desmond Bane around for six games. They beat the shit out of me, so I was tired, and then obviously was chasing Stephen Curry around too, so my legs were shot, and I couldn’t make a shot.” But he snapped out of it, finishing strong in the second half of Game 3.

Afterward, Reaves poked fun at himself and his 2-of-8 shooting performance, acknowledging that he hadn’t performed up to his standard. “Well,” he said to James and Davis, “I was plus-15.”

Reaves was actually significantly better that night, finishing as a plus-31. But James just looked at him when he made the joke. He wasn’t laughing. “OK, plus-minus, it’s out of the window for you. You’re too good,” James said, according to Reaves. “Sometimes my plus-minus is minus-five, but that doesn’t mean anything for some guys.”

Reaves paused. He was now “some guys.” Fuck. Reaves realized one half of satisfactory basketball wasn’t good enough anymore. Arguably the greatest player of all time expected more from him, so he had to expect more from himself, too. The exchange stuck with Reaves, heading into this fall’s slate of preseason games. “LeBron’s expectation is growing as well as everybody else’s,” Reaves says. “And I invite that, because it gives me more motivation.”

The Lakers need his passion, his edge. The way he so emphatically celebrates. Because as determined as Reaves is, he’s simply having fun. Talking trash, running up the score. After he hit a clutch, off-balance jumper in the lane in Game 1 against Memphis, with just a few minutes remaining, during his first playoff game, he celebrated by pounding his chest and screaming, “I’M HIM!”

That was not emotion taking over; Reaves truly meant it. He isn’t simply satisfied with playing well; he wants to make a statement. “It’s proving that he’s one of the best players in the world,” says Aaron Reilly, one of his agents at AMR Agency. “It’s showing that this isn’t cute. This isn’t fun. This isn’t a ha ha Austin’s here, this is a nice story. It’s, ‘Fuck you guys. I’m here. And I’m going to take your heart.’”

Reilly once asked him: “What do you hope to do in this league?” “He [said]: ‘I want to tell everyone to fuck off.’ He’s not kidding,” Reilly says, adding later: “His mindset is like, ‘I’m going to kill this year.’ And I think the playoffs were a real big thing for that. And now [after] USA Basketball, he’s comfortable now. Now he knows. I don’t have to worry about [the] contract. I don’t have to worry about money. I just have to worry about hooping and winning basketball games.”

Photo by Stephen Gosling/NBAE via Getty Images

At the beginning of summer, it wasn’t 100 percent clear whether Reaves would be back in Los Angeles. His breakout season, combined with a relatively muted free-agent class, couldn’t have been timed better for him to hit the open market. He was suddenly one of the most talked-about targets of the offseason. It wasn’t apparent if the Lakers would open their wallets or if another team, like the San Antonio Spurs, would woo him away.

San Antonio wasn’t just chatter; Reaves says the Spurs were a real possibility he considered. But in the end, he couldn’t imagine himself playing in San Antonio. “I wanted to be back in L.A.,” Reaves says. Not just for a season—he wants to be a Laker for life. It’s more than a jersey to him; it’s a mentality, it’s a pride thing. It’s the connections he has built. He thought about how well the organization treated him. “They treated me like family, as good as they possibly could,” Reaves says.

Still, he wanted to hear out other opportunities. It’s a rare experience, and one of the advantages of going undrafted—hitting the open market early as a restricted free agent. But on free agency’s opening day, Reaves was extremely nervous. “He was so stressed,” Spencer says, “like I’ve never seen before.” Austin was at his father Brian’s home in Arkansas, stepping outside, then back inside, pacing back and forth, awaiting updates.

Why so much anxiety? “The unknown,” Spencer says. He didn’t know whether a Lakers deal was going to happen, or whether another team would make an offer. If they did, would the Lakers match it? Meanwhile, Reaves’s agents, Reilly and Reggie Berry, were on the phone for “11 hours straight” talking to the Lakers, Spurs, and Houston Rockets, Reilly says. “I’m not kidding. It was nuts.”

Reaves had talked with some of his Lakers teammates about his impending future, especially Davis and D’Angelo Russell, two teammates with whom he’s grown especially close. “We had a very good feeling that L.A. was going to offer the [max] right away, and I asked [Russell and Davis] if I should take that or if I should wait,” he says. “And they both gave me their opinions, and I took it to heart, because I feel like both of those guys, we have real relationships on the court, off the court.”

Handy had many conversations with Reaves about free agency, as well. “These are the kind of problems that you want, [to] have some choices to take care of you and your family for years and years and years,” Handy told him. But, he also told Reaves: “The grass isn’t always greener.” Handy wasn’t telling Reaves not to explore other options, but he was reminding him of what they were building in L.A. “I know what I’m going to get being here,” Reaves says, “And I know who I’m playing with and how they elevate me and make me a better player. The system fit perfectly.”

Reaves thought about how much more he’d be able to grow playing alongside James and Davis. He thought about how much head coach Darvin Ham trusted him, and how much faith his teammates also had in him during the playoffs, handing him the ball in clutch situations. On one play, during Game 1 against Memphis, he ran to the corner when James caught an outlet pass. James told him to come back and get the ball. Reaves didn’t understand: Why would James, who could blow past anybody, any time, give up the ball to him? “My brain left the game for a second,” Reaves says. And then he thought: I can’t make him look stupid. I’ve got to make something good happen. Muscle memory took over, and he scored a flurry of baskets.

“Be yourself,” he remembers James telling him.

It was an astounding thing for Reaves to hear. LeBron wasn’t demanding Reaves follow his lead; he was insisting the Lakers needed Reaves for who he was and what he was good at. Russell, too, often tells Reaves to, essentially, do you. “Don’t defer to anybody,” he says.

These are all things Reaves considered while back home in Arkansas as free agency began. Things felt familiar—his laundry was sprawled all over his bedroom floor, his mom cooked his favorite meals, he played golf for hours on end—but he knew, too, that his life was about to change profoundly. Things wouldn’t feel as precarious as they had on his two-year minimum contract, knowing he was playing for a new deal. His future always seemed to hang in the balance. “Especially the middle of last year, I felt like I was kind of walking on eggshells trying to be perfect,” Reaves says.

A rare moment of vulnerability peeks through his confident armor. He always felt that the fairy tale that his life had become could end at any moment. And, to him, that meant forcing himself to play through a nagging hamstring injury. Only when the pain became unbearable last season did he begrudgingly agree to sit out for a stretch of time.

“He was just like, ‘I have to play. I have to play. I’m losing money. I’m losing my contract right now by not playing,’” Spencer says. Spencer told Austin to relax; nothing would happen to his contract. “You’re fine,” Spencer said.

But Austin wasn’t fine. A contract was on the line. So when the Lakers did offer him the extension, he was more than thrilled; he exhaled a deep sigh of relief. He could just focus on winning, and, of course, he was now making “life-changing money,” Spencer says.

The money, however, hasn’t changed Reaves. “I’m still going to play the same way,” Reaves says. “Nothing’s going to change that, but I don’t have to always have the thought in the back of my mind, ‘If I don’t go play the best game ever, anything can happen.’”

Off the court, he’s still the same person, always in sweatpants and a hoodie (Handy asked him whether he could hook him up with some stylists who were interested; Reaves answered simply: “Hell no”).

But Handy has reminded Reaves that if he continues to prove himself, his life would change even more. He has the potential to make even more money in the future. Handy told Reaves’s agents: “Look, I think this bag that you got, this is what we call a little bag. Now it’s time for you to go get a big bag.”

Everywhere Reaves went in the Philippines, the site of the FIBA World Cup, fans mobbed him for autographs and pictures. His agents had to sneak him through many a back door as fans rushed to catch a glimpse of him. Even at the hotel, sometimes carloads of fans would see him through the lobby window, pull over, and run into the hotel for a selfie. He hadn’t realized how many Filipinos were Lakers fans but felt the love in every room he walked into. It was staggering, going from Oklahoma to overseas, from anonymity to international sensation.

One kid even held up a homemade poster at the arena that said: “Austin Reaves > LeBron James.” He asked Reaves to sign it. Reaves, of course, obliged, but couldn’t help but laugh. “You might’ve got a little carried away,” he told the fan, “but I appreciate it.”

Another time, two young kids got Austin’s autograph, and then walked away showing it to a friend, screaming: “Look what I got signed!!! Austin Reaves!!!” They were so excited, they couldn’t stop jumping around.

All tournament long, one particular fan was screaming so loudly for Reaves that even he noticed from the court. “I want to take care of this guy,” he told Berry after one of the games. Reaves put together a gift bag for the fan, which included a pair of his signature sneakers, and invited him to the hotel. As soon as he saw Austin, the fan broke down crying.

“Austin Reaves, I love you,” the fan said. “You’re him. You’re him!” He told Reaves it was one of the coolest things to happen to him. The thing was, Austin was grateful that the fan had cheered him on all during the World Cup. “Austin’s like, ‘I appreciate you more than you know,’” Berry says.

Reaves was so focused, so determined to win a gold medal, that he forgot to secure an international phone plan. This was, after all, his first time playing abroad for an extensive period of time. He couldn’t call anyone throughout the tournament with his existing phone plan. But that didn’t much matter; Reaves isn’t one for social media. He still isn’t on X, the app formerly known as Twitter. “Twitter’s where the haters are,” he once told his agents as a rookie.

He was ready to suit up for the U.S., confident in his abilities, even if he didn’t love how he looked the first time he put on his jersey. “I had a scraggly beard. I looked homeless,” Reaves says. But “I definitely had the biggest smile on my face.”

But once he got on the court, the cold-blooded version of Reaves came out. There was no more smiling. His mentality was “Just go prove these people wrong,” Reaves says. “There was a lot of people that didn’t understand why I got the opportunity to play for the USA team and thought that I didn’t deserve to be there.” Reaves isn’t an All-Star, but he was the perfect pick for the U.S. team because of his versatile skill set and experience playing around All-Stars.

“I was so pleased when Team USA saw what we saw in him,” Buss says. “He has always had that confidence in himself, and now he’s getting the opportunity to show everybody else. So it isn’t new. This was always who he was. He just needed the opportunity to show everybody else.”

Reaves also took to heart something U.S. head coach Steve Kerr told the team: Sacrifice for the greater good. All that matters is winning, no matter how much one scores as an individual. But the U.S. came up well short of its goal, finishing fourth and falling to Canada in the bronze-medal game. Reaves was one of the few bright spots in a disappointing campaign for the U.S., averaging 13.8 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game, while shooting 57 percent from the field and 50 percent from deep. He looked as if he had played on the international stage for years.

When Reaves thinks about the way he was embraced overseas, the way fans clamored for just a glimpse of him, he struggles to reconcile his current reality. Before this summer, he’d deny when anyone told him that he was famous—reminding them that he was just a regular person.

But now that this summer has launched him into a different stratosphere, he knows the way he sees himself, too, might need to shift. It’s something he wrestles with; becoming who he always thought he could be, but now embracing everything that comes with it. “I still think that. I’m holding on to that,” he says, meaning that he still feels he’s a regular person. “[But] going over there [to the Philippines] and having the interactions with the fans, kids, literally everybody because they’re all Lakers fans, which I love, it made me see everybody else’s perspective. … I don’t like to admit, but … yeah …”

It’s true: He is famous. Famous enough for some fans to dress up as him for Halloween. Famous enough for Kerr to tell reporters “that’s not an accident” that Reaves is here. Famous enough to be in a media day picture between two All-NBA players.

With Reaves starring for Team USA, the public perception was shifting. People from his hometown in Arkansas were beaming, watching his games. Brian, his father, knew many of them had never gotten the chance to take a plane anywhere, let alone around the world. He felt pride watching Austin hammer home a putback dunk against Italy. Ever since high school, he had joked with Austin: “Are you ever going to get a putback?” And now his son did it on the world’s biggest stage. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself,” Brian says.

Oftentimes, when Brian’s driving, he can see a giant billboard of Austin in Batesville. There are only three roads in and out of the area, so most everyone sees it, next to Fred’s Fish House, a few car lots, and a church. The billboard has Austin’s face next to the words: “Champions are made here.”

Brian is proud not because Austin is a millionaire or even merely a professional basketball player; it’s that he put in the work—and that work is finally, truly, being seen.

Photo by Jeff Bottari/NBAE via Getty Images

But, of course, not everybody sees it. And not everybody will. That doesn’t bother Reaves. His new contract, if anything, has made him even more motivated to prove people wrong. He shined in the Lakers’ preseason win last week over Brooklyn, scoring 18 points.

“Unfortunately, there are some players who get the money and they get the contract, and they rest,” Handy says. “And then there’s some players that say, ‘This is exactly what I needed. Now I can really focus on my craft. Now I can really become the best professional that I can be.’ … That’s the space that Austin’s in and making sure that he doesn’t rest. There’s nothing to be complacent about. The kid is young, and I think he’s got an even brighter future.”

When asked about his third-year goals, Reaves talks about team goals: “Twenty years from now, if I’m lucky enough to have kids, I could be like, I won a championship with LeBron James. … That’s all I really care about right now.”

Reaves knows there is a long season ahead, which is why he tries to keep himself grounded. He plays golf in his spare time, calling himself Hillbilly Bogey. The most expensive thing he’s purchased since his new contract has been a $5,000 set of golf clubs. (He isn’t in a rush to make any more big purchases; he still leases his home.)

He says he plays golf for fun, but a lot of the time, Hillbilly Bogey says he doesn’t have fun on the course. “Because I’m mentally mad at myself all the time,” he says. Trent Swaim, his best friend and avid golf partner, sees that competitiveness up close. “You would think you go to have a good time, but really you go to be challenged,” Swaim says.

But Reaves takes it to another level: “My temper is way worse on the golf course than the basketball court. I’m ready to commit murder out there.”

He begins criticizing his performance from earlier that day, saying that the outing “didn’t end so good,” even though technically, the golf outing doesn’t count in any real way. But in Austin’s world, everything counts. There has to be a winner, has to be a loser. He not only wants to make every shot, but also expects himself to make every shot—just as he does in basketball. “Obviously, that’s not realistic,” he says. Handy often has to remind him of that on the basketball court; to let the missed shot go. To focus on the next one.

Reaves is reminded of a podcast he listened to about the inevitability of failure in golf. About 80 percent of shots in the sport are, in essence, failures; even the most brilliant golfers don’t come close to hitting the ball in the hole every time. Reaves couldn’t believe it. “That just don’t sit right with me,” Reaves says.

Of course it doesn’t; he has spent a lifetime trying to achieve the impossible, trying to defy expectations. He knew he could crack the Lakers roster as a two-way player, even when few around the league knew his name. He knew that if he just got a moment to play the way he had all those years in Arkansas, clawing and scratching his way in, without many college offers in tow, he would find a way to stick.

The Summer of Austin, though, showed him he could do more than stick; he could thrive. Now, he wants to win. “To be able to tell everybody that didn’t think I could,” he says, “throw up the middle finger and smile.”