Can both be brought back?
The Los Angeles Lakers went 53-29 this past season and earned the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but a second-round sweep at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder left the organization with more questions than answers heading into the offseason.
The biggest ones involve their two most important free agents.
Austin Reaves and LeBron James are both set to hit the open market this summer, and while the front office has spent the offseason planning around Luka Doncic, the conversations around each player look nothing alike.
Reaves just turned 28 and is coming off his best season, putting up 23.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game in 51 games while shooting 49 percent from the field.
James, now 41, still averaged 20.9 points, 7.2 assists and 6.1 rebounds across 60 games, but the front office views him very differently.
Buha Lays Out the Priority
Lakers beat writer Jovan Buha addressed the situation on his "Buha's Block" podcast and was direct about where things stand.
"There's two big differences between LeBron and Reaves right now," Buha said. "One, LeBron is a short-term solution. Reaves is viewed by the franchise as a long-term cornerstone."
Reaves is expected to decline his $14.9 million player option and could command around $40 million per year from teams like the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls, giving him real leverage as a free agent this summer.
James does not have anything close to that same pull.
"Reaves is more of a priority for the Lakers than LeBron is. That's just a fact," Buha said. "The second part of it is that Reaves is going to have a market. LeBron, maybe he wants to go to Chicago, or Brooklyn, I do not foresee that, but the issue with LeBron is that all of the teams that are going to want LeBron are going to have somewhere between a vet minimum offer and a non-taxpayer mid-level exception offer."
The Cap Situation Actually Helps
What gets lost in the Reaves-over-LeBron conversation is that the Lakers don't actually have to choose between them.
Doncic carries the biggest number on the books at roughly $51 million, while the rest of the guaranteed roster sits well below $20 million combined between Jarred Vanderbilt, Jake LaRavia, Dalton Knecht and Adou Thiero.
With Reaves' cap hold at around $20.9 million, the Lakers could have close to $48 million in space under the projected $165 million salary cap before even using their Bird rights.
Because the Lakers hold Bird rights on both players, they can spend that cap space on outside additions and then go over the cap to bring back both Reaves and James.
Buha himself expects both back and has said the team "can easily keep both," a sentiment echoed by those around the organization.
The priority order still matters, though, because it signals to Reaves that he is the long-term building block next to Doncic.
Getting that message right could be the difference between keeping him and watching him walk.
