Will Austin Reaves’ role ‘realignment’ for Lakers continue?
PHOENIX — Austin Reaves could sense a change was coming before Friday’s road-trip-ending win over the Phoenix Suns at Footprint Center.
The Lakers (4-5) were coming off a blowout loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday for their third consecutive defeat of the four-game road trip – their second loss in three games by at least 19 points.
Their starting lineup was getting off to slow starts. Reaves in particular was struggling to consistently string together strong performances. He could feel they “needed to shake things up.”
So when coach Darvin Ham texted Reaves on Thursday evening after the team landed in Phoenix that he wanted to have a conversation, he wasn’t surprised when the decision was made to move Reaves to a reserve role after starting 34 consecutive games (regular season and playoffs) entering Friday.
“I’m a competitor,” Reaves said. “Truthfully, don’t want to have that conversation. Would love to have been playing better to not have those conversations, winning as a team. But, my parents taught me at a young age that the coach is the coach. And his decision, regardless if you agree with it or don’t agree with it, you respect that.
“That’s what I did. We had good dialogue back and forth on what we thought we could do to be better as a unit. And, for me, as I’ve spoken about the last two years I’ve been in the NBA and even before that is, winning is the main thing.”
The move to the bench, at least for one game, worked.
The Lakers were able to get the defensive assignments they wanted, with Cam Reddish, who took over the starting spot for Reaves, guarding Bradley Beal and Taurean Prince guarding Kevin Durant.
“When I told him what I was thinking, I talked to my staff about it and everybody agreed that we needed to change up the music a little bit,” Ham said. “And it wasn’t, first and foremost, it wasn’t a demotion for Austin. It was just a realignment. If anybody remembers those great San Antonio teams where everyone in the world knew Manu [Ginóbili] was a starter.
“But sometimes to balance out your lineup, you have to put a player of his magnitude in a reserve role so now when the starters go to sit down and take their break, you’re not totally falling off a cliff. You have balance in the second unit. As deep as we are and him leading the charge and having a chance to quarterback the situation offensively, have the ball in his hands and be able to make plays.”
And Reaves was still able to find his rhythm in a reserve role, finishing with 15 points (6-of-11 shooting) and seven assists.
“You don’t have to make me feel comfortable,” Reaves said. “I understand. I see the writing on the wall. I [saw] it coming. I haven’t played great. I’ve had games here and there. And as a team, we haven’t played great. I respect the fact that he texted me and we had a conversation about it. And, seeing eye to eye. And whatever it is that both of us can do to help the team be successful is what we want to do and what I’m willing to do.”
Reaves logged 35 minutes – third most on the team – and recorded 10 points and five assists while playing the entire fourth quarter to help lead the Lakers’ comeback victory.
“That was the thing we talked about: His minutes weren’t going to go down and he’s going to finish the game for us,” Ham said. “It’s just a difference between starting or not starting out at the tip.”
The Lakers’ starting lineup of Reddish, Prince, D’Angelo Russell, LeBron James and Anthony Davis was a plus-three in three minutes Friday. The sample is small but encouraging after the previous starting group of Reaves, Russell, Prince, James and Davis were a minus-21 in 65 minutes together.
Will Ham continue to roll out starting groups with Reaves coming off the bench?
“We’ll see,” Ham said. “We’ve still got a couple of guys on the mend. We still got some guys trying to get their legs up under them that [have] been out. The beautiful thing is we have options. We have some choices, and some good ones at that. So we’ll continue to study the film, look at the numbers and take it day by day and move forward and plug in who needs to be plugged in appropriately.”
TRAIL BLAZERS AT LAKERS
When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles
TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet, 710 AM