Lakers News: How LeBron James Felt About Austin Reaves Heading Into Rookie Season

LA's starting shooting guard first joined the team as an undrafted free agent.

Following a demonstrative 121-107 victory over a very depleted Phoenix Suns team Friday, Los Angeles Lakers All-Star small forward LeBron James got real when asked by gathered reporters about his initial feelings on Austin Reaves during the shooting guard's rookie season in 2021-22. 

After going undrafted out of Oklahoma, Reaves signed a training camp deal with the Lakers, which quickly became a two-way contract, and before the season was upgraded to a standard deal. The LA front office clearly liked what they were seeing, but James was initially more skeptical about the player who would become LA's starting shooting guard this season and possibly their third-best player.

.@KingJames talks about foot management, the expectations of Austin Reaves, and being a dad on his time off before the game on Sunday. pic.twitter.com/eViVOGOFxq

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 8, 2023

“I didn’t expectations for him,” James said frankly. “When you get an undrafted guy on your roster, you don’t have much expectations for him. I knew the player we were getting because, like I said, I did watch a lot of film on him and [had] seen his ability to play the point, play off the ball."

“He had a high basketball IQ, being able either make plays for himself of find open guys I could just see the IQ working every time he was playing the game at Oklahoma," James continued. “Once he got to us and coach [Frank] Vogel threw him in the fire right away or early on, you could see that he was capable of playing at this level for long time. It was no surprise for me.”

Reaves has been heating up at just the right time. Across his last ten games, the 6'5" second-year wing has been averaging 20.6 points on .579/.432/.892 shooting splits, 6.1 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game.

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