Will Austin Reaves sign with the LA Lakers again? Looking into rumors around the guard's impending free agency

Austin Reaves, undrafted in 2021, found a home with the LA Lakers, who offered him a two-way contract. He's shown solid growth, including dropping a career-high of 35 points on 9-for-14 shooting against the Orlando Magic in a 111-105 win on March 19.

Because of Reaves' consistent improvement, the Lakers will have to make a decision regarding his future as free agency is fast approaching. The Athletic's Shams Charania talked about the situation on FanDuel TV.

"If it gets to that $60 million-$70 million range for Austin Reaves, that’s a tough contract for the Lakers to match," Charania said. "He wants to give the Lakers every opportunity to try to get a deal done."

Peter Dewey from the Lakers Daily discussed how the LA Lakers must keep in mind the need to bring back D'Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura once the postseason has wrapped up.

Before LeBron James returned to the court on March 26 against the Chicago Bulls, Reaves was a strong contributor in helping the LA Lakers move up in the standings during James' absence.

Reaves being offered a two-way contract by the LA Lakers

Harrison Faigen from SB Nation's "Silver Screen and Roll" wrote an article discussing what happened with Reaves in the 2021 NBA draft.

On Vic Law's "94 & more" podcast, Reaves talked about how he declined to be picked by the Detroit Pistons in the draft to go suit up with the LA Lakers on a two-way contract offer.

"The night before, the Lakers had called and said, if for some reason I go undrafted, that they wanted to be the first place that said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a two-way for you.’" Reaves said. "And so going into the draft, we knew that I was gonna have a two-way contract in L.A., so we were in a good place with contract stuff and things like that."

During the draft, the Detroit Pistons called in with the 42nd pick, but Reaves and his agent declined as they went with the LA Lakers' offer.