NBA Executive Offers Bold Take on Lakers Guard Austin Reaves
For Lakers fans, many of us saw this coming. For the casual fan, Austin Reaves’s ascension to a borderline top-25 talent in the league has been mystifying. He’s been averaging career highs in almost every significant stat and breaking Lakers records along the way.
Austin Reaves last 13 games 😳
26.6 PPG
5.3 RPG
5.7 APG
53%/42%/94%
68.5% TSSUPERSTAR 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/IcxpRKb1I9
— Lakersalltheway (@Lakersallthewa3) April 5, 2025
The 6’5 guard from Arkansas wouldn’t blow you away just looking at him. In most games, he is not the biggest, fastest, or strongest player on the court. This may have led to him going undrafted back in 2021.
Since then, he’s shown he can fill just about any role necessary to benefit the team with winning play. Reaves going undrafted begs many questions.
How did a player of his caliber get skipped over by all 30 NBA teams, not just once but twice? Another fun one is: Of all the best undrafted players ever, where does Reaves stack up?
It’s an objective question, frankly, with no real concrete answer. After comments, however, from an anonymous Western Conference GM, we may have some better insight.
Reaves the best undrafted player since Hall of Famer?
On Tuesday morning, ESPN reported that an anonymous Western Conference GM believes Austin Reaves is the best undrafted player since Ben Wallace.
“He’s the best undrafted player since Ben Wallace, and that guy’s a Hall of Famer,”
– An anonymous western conference executive on Austin Reaves
(Via ESPN) pic.twitter.com/OzgjxR7p7P
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) April 8, 2025
For reference, while the stats might not show it, Wallace was one of the most physically dominant bigs of the late 90s and early 2000s. The four-time All-Star and five-time 1st Team All-Defense selection used his sheer size and dominance to help lead the Pistons to an NBA Championship in 2004.
Wallace is now a Hall of Famer, and it begs the question: Is Austin Reaves on a similar trajectory?
Statistics certainly lean in favor of Reaves when you compare the two. It will be a matter of Reaves securing awards and achievements like All-Star selections and some all-league nods over the coming years to reach those heights.
Hopefully, he can begin this year with an NBA Championship. If Reaves continues to elevate his game season by season as he has done to this point, the sky is the limit.
