The Los Angeles Lakers received some great news on Tuesday night, but it wasn't trade news that several teams around the NBA received. After missing the entire month of January, Austin Reaves made his return to the lineup for the Lakers in their win over the Brooklyn Nets.

In the final leg of their eight-game road trip, the Lakers defeated the Nets 125-109, taking a 6-5 lead early in the first quarter and never looking back. LeBron James led the way for the Lakers with 25 points and seven assists, but the focus was on Reaves as the Lakers got their third star back.

In 21 minutes of action, Reaves finished the night with 15 points on 3-of-9 shooting from the field, with eight of his points coming from the free throw line. A Lakers bench high of +10, he'll have five games at home before the All-Star break to get back into the form he was at the start of the season.

After the game, head coach JJ Redick was asked about what he saw from Reaves in his return to action.

"I thought he moved great and looked like Austin. He had three or four really good looks in the first half that didn't go down, but did a nice job of attacking the basket, getting to the free-throw line...He just wants to play and be a good teammate...," Redick said.

In his first 21 games of the season, before he started dealing with injury problems, Reaves averaged 27.8 points, 6.7 assists, and 4.8 rebounds per game on 50.3% shooting from the field. With LeBron back, there's bound to be some regression, but he's an important player to this team's hopes of a deep postseason run.

"I thought he put himself in a good position to have a good night," he added, highlighting the work Reaves has put in over the past couple of months.

As Redick mentioned in his press conference, this is an important year for Reaves, who is set to have a $14.8 million player option for the 2026-27 season, which is expected to be declined and open the way for a significant payday for the Lakers guard.

The rest of the season will dictate a lot of how much the franchise is willing to pay him, or other franchises that is who may be trying to poach him from the Lakers in the offseason. Regardless, it's great for the Lakers to have Reaves back as they can start to figure out the rest of their roster in the coming days.