Austin Reaves details anecdote about LeBron James attending Lakers summer league game
During the Los Angeles Lakers’ Las Vegas Summer League finale against the Detroit Pistons, two prominent figures made an appearance.
LeBron James and newly acquired Russell Westbrook came out to watch the Lakers squad before the summer league games came to a close.
Austin Reaves, who is on a two-way contract with the Lakers as a rookie, detailed an anecdote about James watching him and the rest of the team play, via Mike Trudell of Lakers.com:
MT: OK, last thing. You’re playing in the game against Detroit on Saturday, and LeBron and Russ walk in. You’re a pro too, but is there something there where you’re thinking, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m about to spend the whole season working out in the same gym at the UCLA Health Training Center’ … or whatever.
Reaves: It’s crazy … in the game, when they walked in, I had no idea they were coming, nothing. So I remember the time now when everyone was going crazy, but I didn’t know what it was at the time because I was playing. But during the game, we were on defense, and someone (on Detroit) shot it from the corner. Another (Piston) was on the block, and he wasn’t checked out, so I went down and cracked him. I heard someone behind me say, ‘Good!’ or something like that. I’m like … I don’t really hear people. But that voice sounds real familiar. Who? So I keep playing or whatever. Then I go to the bench, and I look over, and it’s LeBron and Russ. I’m like, ‘Oh! That’s crazy!’.
Reaves went on to praise James and explained his excitement for the season ahead:
It’s just things like that, I mean, the IQ that he has is off the charts. There’s not much else you can say. It’s LeBron, arguably the best player ever. It’s going to be fun just to be around him and four or five other potential Hall of Famers on the team. It’s a great opportunity to go in and just learn. All of them are high IQ guys, done a lot of things and been real successful, so it’s going to be super fun.
The 23-year-old combo guard showed a little of everything for the Lakers. He had solid rebounding numbers, could initiate the offense at 6-foot-5 as a capable ball-handling guard and made smart plays, as mentioned above, on defense.
The primary concern, however, was Reaves’ jump shot. He averaged 6.6 points on 29.5% shooting overall (8.8 attempts) and 25% from deep on 2.4 attempts.
If he can turn it around with the South Bay Lakers under new head coach Miles Simon, he could make a run for a roster spot in the 2022-23 season.
