For Austin Reaves, the thrill of winning in the NBA is undeniable, but it might still fall short of a moment from his childhood. Long before he was helping the Los Angeles Lakers climb the Western Conference standings, Reaves was locked in fierce backyard battles with his older brother, Spencer Reaves. After the Lakers guard recently confessed to the rough treatment he endured growing up, his brother’s response added a humorous twist to the story.

The Lakers left it late to win against the Magic on Saturday as Reaves finished the night with 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Following the win, the young guard shared a personal reflection revolving around winning. “I mean, there’s nothing like winning. Obviously, losing sucks. It’s why you play the game,” Reaves told the reporters. “At a young age, I never won anything… With my brother being two years older than me, I never really won anything. He beat the crap out of me in everything, basketball, baseball, tennis, and ping-pong; he never let me win anything. So I grew a hatred to losing. That feeling of winning, the first time I beat him in basketball, was probably the best feeling of my life. Winning is — it fixes everything.”

Following Austin Reaves’ statement, his elder brother, Spencer Reaves, reposted the video with a head-shaking emoji, expressing a friendly denial of his younger brother’s statement. The two Reaves brothers are very tight, as Spencer has played a major role in helping Austin pursue his basketball dream. The Lakers star has often shared how his brother’s belief in him kept him going.

Growing up on a farm in Newark, Arkansas, Austin learned that his brother, Spencer, would beat him at basketball in his formative years. He eventually got better than his elder brother at senior school. He then entered college, playing for Wichita State for the first two years before switching to the University of Oklahoma.

Austin was recruited merely in a catch-and-shoot role at Wichita State, but things improved with his switch to Oklahoma, where he got to show his true potential, averaging 18.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game in his senior year.

During the ups and downs in his college years. Reaves was grateful for the opportunity to join the Oklahoma Sooners and kept his brother’s lessons in his mind throughout. “It’s very easy to get frustrated with the process and things not going the way that you want them to go,” he once said. “That’s one thing my brother did really well at teaching me—that any point, any situation, you just got to get in front of the right person.”

After a lot of struggle, he declined the opportunity to be the 42nd overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft and went undrafted, only to sign a two-way contract with his favorite team, the Lakers. He went on to secure a permanent NBA contract with the Purple and Gold. Since then, he has never seen the Lakers play with so much dominance and panache.

This is the best winning streak of Austin Reaves’s NBA career with the Lakers

Right from opting to be undrafted in the 2021 NBA Draft, Austin Reaves has established himself as the second option in this Los Angeles Lakers team behind Luka Doncic.

It is a major thing for the Purple and Gold as they also have the likes of LeBron James and Marcus Smart in their ranks, who are far more experienced than the young guard. But his exemplary performances this season have propelled the Lakers to the third spot in the Western Conference.

The nine-game winning streak is the best run of games that he has enjoyed in his considerably short NBA career with the Lakers. The last time the Lakers won nine games in a row was during their 2019-20 championship-winning season, when Reaves was not on the roster. He joined the team a couple of years later and has only endured many struggles and disappointments.

His most successful season with the Lakers was the 2023 Western Conference Finals, which ended in a 4-0 sweep at the hands of the Denver Nuggets.

Reaves is currently in the final year of his contract and has a $14.9 million player option for next season, which he is set to reject for a much larger paycheck. He’s averaging 23.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 5.5 assists this season, so one can say he has done enough to deserve a new lucrative deal ranging up to $240 million.

The Lakers will hope to keep pushing forward and stretch this winning record for as long as they can. They will next face the Detroit Pistons on Monday, who will be without their MVP candidate, Cade Cunningham. Given the Lakers’ current form, they should be able to overcome this shorthanded Pistons outfit.

In the larger context, if the Lakers want to push for the championship this season, they would need the backcourt duo of Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves to work in tandem. When Doncic gets double-teamed, Reaves’ presence becomes vital to running the Lakers’ offense. It will be fascinating to see whether JJ Redick’s men can maintain such consistency in the playoffs.