Lakers News: LA Extends Qualifying Offers To Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura

Here we go...

Your Los Angeles Lakers have announced that they just extended qualifying offers to 25-year-old LA role players Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura, officially making them restricted free agents.

This is something of a formality, as there was almost no way LA would renounce its rights to these two promising young pieces. Had Los Angeles not tendered this dynamic duo these qualifying offers, they would have entered unrestricted free agency, which would render the Lakers unable to match any offer extended their way. This would have only been worth doing had LA felt that there was a clear maximum-salaried roster upgrade available in the open market.

Both players are now in line for major raises this offseason. 

Reaves' $1,563,518 salary for the 2022-23 NBA season is his career high. He could earn up to $98.7 million in restricted free agency. The 6'5" wing pretty definitively became LA's clear-cut third-best player behind stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the playoffs, averaging 16.9 points on .464/.443/.895 shooting splits, 4.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 0.6 steals a night. This happened in 16 playoff games so it feels less like a fluke and more like a trend.

Hachimura made $6.3 million in 2022-23, also a career high. A sharpshooting reserve combo forward with size and athleticism, the 6'8" big man really emerged in these past playoffs as a reliable option, tapping into the intriguing upside he had previously flashed during a dysfunctional situation with the middling Washington Wizards, the franchise who drafted him ninth overall in 2019.

The Gonzaga product averaged 12.2 points on a stellar slash line of .557/.487/.882, plus 3.6 boards, in his 16 playoff games. His scoring had become so essential to LA's attack that he had supplanted Jarred Vanderbilt as the club's starting power forward by the end of LA's postseason run, in a fateful Game 4 against the Denver Nuggets. He seems to be in line for a deal anywhere between $13-20 million annually.

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