If you care about NBA basketball, we’re in a magical stretch with games to watch every night for the next many weeks. It’s a bummer that former Razorback Bobby Portis, the best Arkansan in the NBA, and the Milwaukee Bucks got bounced early, but Malik Monk (Lepanto/Bentonville) has occasionally been dazzling for the Sacramento Kings whose first-round matchup with the defending champion Golden State Warriors has been the best series so far with former Hog Moses Moody making the most of his limited playing time.
But the most fun Arkansas native in the playoffs to watch so far is Austin Reaves, the 24-year-old second year player from Newark (Independence County), who once scored 73 points in a triple-overtime game for his Cedar Ridge High School team. He must have gotten passed over by Mike Anderson because he signed with Witchita State before transferring to Oklahoma. He went undrafted, but signed a two-way contract wit the Los Angeles Lakers before quickly working his way to a standard contract.
He had a solid first year, but has really come alive in his second year, averaging 13 points per game. Since the All-Star break he’s been sizzling, averaging something like 18 per game. He’s become the Lakers third scoring option behind future Hall of Famers LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
ESPN has a story on his rise and expected big payday to follow this season.
“In the NBA you see a white guy, he’s usually the shooter and he usually can’t guard anybody,” [teammate D’Angelo] Russell told ESPN. “Or he’s tough and can’t do anything else. For him to have a little bit of everything, I think it … helps the situation. And … he’s a killer. When you recognize a killer that [has the mentality of], ‘I’ll score 40 on you … and then I’ll try to score 50 on you.’ He’s that guy. Like if he’s going, he’s going to go and there’s no holding back.
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Lakers coach Darvin Ham admits when he observed Reaves in open runs last summer, he wasn’t sure what to make of his game.
“At first I was like, ‘Man, this dude is so undisciplined,’” Ham said.
Reaves remembers a sequence during an early-season practice when he started to change his coach’s perception.
“I shot, like, a left-hand scoop layup high off the glass over AD,” Reaves said. “And I made it. He came over and was like, ‘Oh, you have that in your bag?’ And I kindly was like, ‘I think I have a lot in my bag that a lot of people don’t know.’”
Anyway, the Lakers take on the Memphis Grizzlies at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN. I’m definitely more inclined to root for the nearby Grizz, but they’re down 3-2 and hobbled and unlikely to make a deep run this year, so may as well hope for Reaves to keep showing out in the weeks to come.
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