Well he was already great last season. And Deni Jalen Johnson and Keyonte were already known to be good by analytical nerds

Rollins leap was literally random and the bucks would be more screwed than they are if they didn’t have his scam contract

Nico not getting him in the Luka trade looks worse and worse for an already historically bad trade.

If going from “good player” to all nba isnt MIP who are the 5 people above him???

How is he not the MIP this year? If he’s not at least top 2 that race is fake

Him not being in the MIP race reflects more on league bias than an insane amount of talent improving more than him IMO.

His stats are up from last years averages but he killed it the last 1-2 months of the season. So the actual improvement this season is much less than the overall stats show.

But when it’s ja he doesn’t deserve it 😂

Reminder that Nikola Jokic went from 20/10/7 -> 26/11/8 while increasing his FG% by 4%, his 3 point FG% by 8%, and his FT% by 5%, oh and he won MVP…. And was basically not considered at all for MIP.

if he had at least gotten Reaves, and Reaves was still playing this good, the Luka trade wouldn’t have been so bad

I can’t qwhite figure out why he didn’t demand Reaves in the trade…

The whole state of NBA currently revolves around 2 simple things as it seems:

- Nico is a dumbass

- Presti is genius

He’s not a dumbass. Nike and silver gave him very clear instructions, and “don’t take anything from the lakers that you don’t have to just to match the salaries” was very clearly written out for him. He woulda taken rui hachimura if that worked on trade machine

For one year salary to production ratio, yeah. But since he’s effectively expiring and it’ll take a huge increase to keep him after this, there are probably other long term deals that are more team-friendly.

Not counting rookie contracts yes

If you don’t include rookie deals, then almost surely. He’s playing like an All NBA player for MLE money. The worst thing about his contract from a team standpoint is he can opt for free agency this summer.

Very possibly. Just to explore other possibilities.

Jalen Johnson or Senguin as young clearly max guys who are signed for 4-5 years on non max deals.

Shai just in terms of total production per salary is probably the best non rookie deal guy this year (Jokic gets paid a lot more than Shai).

Wemby just from a he’s getting paid $30 million over the next 2 years, but that’s cause it’s a rookie deal.

But yeah Austin has a case.

Arguably, both Kevin Porter Jr and Ryan Rollins are on better contracts. Kpj is making 40%% of reaves contract and actually has better stats per 36.

Ryan Rollins is making 4 mil a year for the next 3 years and is looking as good as reaves was last year.

AR love is well deserved but man i’m getting confused if i’m on r/nba or r/lakers lol. One thing is a fact, AR is on Reddit and he’s seeing all these posts.

Man if ant misses all nba imma be pretty sad ngl

he cant. 42 is the max the Lakers can offer

He is outperforming practically all of them. Who else is dropping 29 points per game on 69%TS (nice)? lol. 

Literally impossible, but ok 👍

Or do you mean, 42m with “aspirations” 8m more?

As long as he shows up in the playoffs he can have a blank check

He’s going to surpass FVV or Ben Wallace for biggest contract extension for an undrafted player.

please do it lakers

He was shooting like dogshit from 3 for the first few weeks too. 42% in his last 10 games

Maybe in 2012

Watching him at OU he showed flashes of becoming the guy we knew him as his first few seasons in the NBA, to that extent I don’t think I’m surprised. Now what he’s done this season? No f’n way anyone saw that coming.

Eh, I think teams are pretty dumb to not use a 2nd round pick on a guy who says they don’t want to be drafted. Who cares if a second round pick is happy to be in the place that picked them? Was he going to go to Europe and then you still have his rights?

Its not like people didn’t think he was good, his agent just got him to be a free agent. And to be fair, getting drafted in the second round is bad for the player. But for any team, it was just a mistake to not take him and get his rights since he was definitely seen as being worth drafting.

Honestly it’s doable. A lot of dudes won’t be eligible, Giannis and Wemby are probably missing that

Most improved player; it’s one of the trophy’s awards that’s given out by the NBA each season

Nah that goes to random lottery pick having a good 2nd or 3rd year as expected

AR’s my favorite player in today’s league but hold on there fella, haha. If you have a viable trade for Giannis you take it.

He wasn’t going anywhere else, when did the Spurs have a chance to get him? He’s an old-school Kobe fan, and his self given nickname is hillbilly Kobe. 

In what universe is austin reaves one of the most athletic players in the league

He didn’t before JJ. Redick forced his handles development last year by benching DLo and pushing through AR struggling initially against physical defenses where he would often lose his handle

After the DLo trade, it’s like something clicked

I love Austin but calling him one of the most athletic dudes in the nba makes the rest of your take invalid lmao.

1951

They just penetrate harder, we get penetrated plenty though. As the immortal Darvin Ham said - Go hard on them dudes

Have you seen Reaves play in games without Luka?

Bill just wanted to make the Lakers pay more. Lakers already widely told other teams they would match whatever contract. Spurs didn’t want to because then they wouldn’t be able to sign free agents in the period Reaves is deciding and Lakers decide to match (which they probably would lag just to eff with the team that sent the offer to Reaves)

So Spurs obviously didn’t waste their time and miss free agents.

It’s comparable to unanimous MVP Steph even

30/7/5 on 50/45/90

Compared to Reaves right now:

29/7/6 on 53/37/88

Steph had slightly higher eFG% and Reaves has higher TS%

I’m also not saying Reaves is comparable to one of the greatest shooting seasons/players ever but it’s wild to see how similar they are on paper.

Edit: FT%

Stat “inflation” isn’t just because of pace though, legitimately the players of today are so much more talented, the way the train, eat, recover is so much more advanced than we used to do compared to even 15 years ago, these guys are much better.

What’s the excuse this year when Denver eventually shits the bed again?