Lakers News: LeBron James Sends Generous Gift To Austin Reaves’ Brother
All-Star Los Angeles Lakers small forward LeBron James clearly has a lot of faith in his starting shooting guard.
James gifted (at least) four pairs of fresh Nikes to the newly re-signed Austin Reaves' older brother Spencer, a 6'3" swingman for German club the Bamberg Baskets.
Spencer, 27, shared a shot of the shoes on his Instagram Story. The snap was captured for posterity by fan Twitter account "Washed LakersvsHaters:"
Austin Reaves enjoyed a breakout sophomore season with Los Angeles in 2022-23. After Darvin Ham installed the 6'5" swingman out of Oklahoma as his permanent starter at the two spot, Reaves averaged 18.3 points on an elite slash line of .571/.486/.898, along with 6.1 dimes and 3.3 rebounds, while turning in solid defense on the wing.
Granted, those stats applied to just the final ten healthy games of the Lakers' regular season, but he more or less maintained a similar level of production through 16 playoff games as well, all starts. In the playoffs, the 25-year-old Reaves averaged 16.9 points on .464/.443/.895 shooting splits, 4.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 0.6 steals a night.
The decision to send Spencer Reaves some merch is clearly a sign of trust from James in Spencer's little brother, who evolved into, quite handily, LA's third-best player (beind James and Anthony Davis) last year. And it wasn't particularly close. He may have a little competition from Gabe Vincent this season, though he probably still has the higher upside.
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