How Austin Reaves, Lakers will be impacted by CBA’s Gilbert Arenas provision

Generally speaking, an NBA player’s current team wields financial advantages when it comes time for them to hit free agency. That gives Rob Pelinka and the front office a few different avenues to re-sign Reaves, which may or may not be available in this specific circumstance: Bird rights: Since the Lakers have early Bird rights on Reaves, they can use them to sign him to a contract starting at the larger of 175 percent of his current salary or 105 percent of the league’s average salary for the previous season for up to four years. Midlevel exception: Not particularly relevant here because Reaves’ $11.3 million starting salary using early Bird rights is basically identical to the nontaxpayer MLE, so the Lakers would much rather use early Bird to preserve their MLE to add new talent. Taking these together, the richest contract the Lakers can reasonably offer Reaves is that four-year, $50.8 million deal via early Bird rights, though it is important to note that cap-space caveat. For Reaves, that means another franchise could sign him to an offer sheet looking Potential Austin Reaves offer sheet Season Salary 2023-24 $11,368,000 2024-25 $11,946,400 2025-26 $36,850,000 2026-27 $38,508,250 Total value: $98.67 million That is a whole lot more than $50.8 million.