Austin Reaves needed guidance.
The Lakers’ blockbuster Anthony Davis-for-Luka Doncic trade marked the first true stunner Reaves has experienced in his four years in Hollywood, leaving him confounded on how to process it all while he said goodbye to friends.
“I asked [LeBron James] earlier, I was like, ‘You’ve been in the league a million years, you’ve had a billion teammates, you’ve seen people come and go. How do you deal with that?'” Reaves said Tuesday.
“The last couple days have been tough for me. I feel like I had just like an empty pit in my stomach just because for the last four years with [Davis], three years with Max [Christie], couple years with [Jalen Hood-Schifino], like I said, you create real relationships and bonds and then out of nowhere they’re on a different team competing to do what they want to do.”
For as much as these trades can be analyzed to death from an on-court perspective, it’s often overlooked that these are real people with real relationships and not just pieces on a chess board.
The Lakers received a generational talent in Doncic, 25, who should help them compete for championships for years to come, much like how Davis played a critical role in the Lakers’ last title in 2020.
Reaves noted that this trade marked the first with “shock” value, contrasting it to the deal that sent D’Angelo Russell to the Nets that he believed you could have seen coming.
“And then with this, after the Knicks game, everybody thought it was fake. I think everybody in the world thought it was fake. So it’s been a tough couple days,” Reaves said. “Forgetting all the basketball stuff, just being — I’ve been around AD for four years … been around Max (Christie) for three, you create real relationships with these guys and that’s been the toughest part for me.”
Those relationships included bonds with the players and their families.
Reaves and Davis has grown close over the years, with the big man spending time on team bus rides with the guard to allow him to interact with his son, and now the latter will be starring Dallas.
“He would be telling AD,’ I want to talk to Reaves,’ and I would always tell him to do the celebration and he would start doing it,” Reaves said. “It’s just little things like that are why it’s tough, but it’s a business and you got to get past that and look forward to what we got now.”
What the Lakers now have is a running mate for James that could make them a tough out in the playoffs, with Los Angeles sitting in fifth in the Western Conference entering Wednesday.
Reaves, who averages 18.4 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, is bullish on his team’s outlook — even if it came with some pain along the way.
“I can’t wait to see what that looks like on the court together, I’m very excited about that,” he said.
Reaves added: “Everybody knows how good [Doncic] is, what a competitor he is. And then to team that up with arguably the greatest player ever, I think we can make something special happen.”
