Soon, it will be 8 months since the seismic trade of two All-Stars. Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis traded places, and that news caught everyone by surprise. So much so that even Shams Charania, who reported it had no graphic prepared, claimed his “hands were shaking”. Like the rest of the world, even teammates LeBron James and Austin Reaves thought it was a prank. Recently, AR spoke in detail about his conversation before the breaking news.

“It was, I mean we played New York. We beat New York by I think 15 or so, you know, pretty comfortably without AD. We were playing well. We get in the locker room after the game. I’m sitting by Bron. We’re just talking about bullshit and I was like, we’re gonna be everybody was kind of falling into roles, and everybody was bought in. Like I said, we were playing well and I was like’ we’re gonna be all right.'” Beating the New York Knicks on the road, that too with a 128-112 scoreline, was a confidence booster.

At the time, Anthony Davis was out with an abdominal strain injury. He was not traveling with the team. But Reaves was hopeful that him, AD, and LeBron James would be a problem for the league. “Like once we get AD back like you know obviously he’s a big piece of what we were going to do at the time, but you know like I said we just beat them, and I was like, ‘we’re going to be all right,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, we’re we’re going to be good.‘” James’ addition to this proves he had no clue the trade was going down.

Austin Revaes’ recent revelation came on The Young Man and The Three podcast, and it was in line with his previous interview with ESPN. During that, AR said him and Bron were talking in the locker room and stated how the addition of AD would make them “dangerous”. An early example of that last season would be their game against another Eastern contender, where the trio added 67 points.

We are talking about the game against the Celtics in January, where the Lakers restricted the Boston team to just 96 points. In return, the Purple and Gold would add 117 with LeBron, Davis, and Reaves all scoring 20+ points individually. This was against a stacked Celtics team, where AD would top score on the night with 24 points, AR dropped 23, and James contributed with 20 points. Unfortunately, this trio couldn’t continue further due to the mid-season trade. But now there is another Big3, and Reaves is up for a physical transformation.

JJ Redick appreciated the work Austin Reaves puts in

This offseason was mainly about Luka Doncic and his shedding weight. In fact, the Slovenian has lost around 20-25 pounds this offseason, while he was away on Euro Basket duties. But he is not the only Lakers player to do so. Jaxson Hayes added 20 pounds, and even Austin Reaves added 5-10 pounds to cope with the physicality of the league. The HC of the Lakers took notice of the latter and recently shared words of encouragement.

“Every day that he’s been in the gym, he’s been the best player in the gym”. During his pre-season press conference, Redick added, “His body is really good right now. He’s really strong. His burst, his athleticism. It’s evident that he spent a lot of time working on his body this summer”. Coming off a breakthrough year, it was paramount for Austin Reaves to continue his development. His contribution of 20.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.8 assists per game was commendable when you add his efficiency to this.

Shooting around 46 percent from the field and 37.7 percent from deep, that too on a $12.9 million deal. But now the 27-year-old is in the final year of his four-year $54 million contract. Many expect him to reject the player option, as Athletic’s Dan Woike reported a potential offer for AR could be around $40 million per year.