Austin Reaves on wanting to stay with Lakers for rest of his career

There seems to be a bit of a groundswell of support among Los Angeles Lakers fans for a trade involving guard Austin Reaves. While he is an integral part of the team, he does have a couple of glaring deficiencies, and he could be its best asset on the open market as far as plugging the roles on its roster.

However, he recently told an Arkansas television station that he wants to spend the rest of his career with the Lakers. During an interview with Lakers Nation, he explained why he wants to be with the Lakers for good, and he even said he grew up as a fan of the team.

“I grew up a Lakers fan, I was a huge Kobe [Bryant] fan and for the Lakers to be the first team that I was involved with on the two-way and then the contract, it’s kind of just the story,” Reaves said in an exclusive interview with Lakers Nation’s Trevor Lane. “And fans in L.A. have treated me great ever since Day 1. It feels like a second home to me.

“I’ll be on the road and be like ‘I can’t wait to go home,’ and people are like ‘You want to go to Arkansas?’ And I’m like ‘No, I want to go to L.A. I was talking about L.A., I want to go to Arkansas too.’ But yeah, L.A. feels like home to me. I feel like we are right there to creating something special, and I want to win a championship more than anything. Especially with that organization. So yeah, I want to be there.”

Reaves went undrafted in 2021 out of the University of Oklahoma, and after signing a two-way contract with the Lakers that summer, he ended up getting a standard contract prior to the start of the 2021-22 season. Since his rookie year, he has increased his production each season.

This season, Reaves, who is now 27 years of age, put up 20.2 points and 5.8 assists a game, and those numbers increased after Luka Doncic was acquired on Feb. 1. Even if the Lakers continue to refuse to involve him in any trade discussions, keeping him long term won't be easy.

He has a player option for the 2026-27 season that he can decline in order to become a free agent next summer. He's reportedly expected to hit the market in 2026 and seek a new contract that would pay him around $30 million a year.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Austin Reaves on wanting to stay with Lakers for rest of his career