Russell Westbrook’s Lakers Stint Gets an Honest Comment from Austin Reaves

Austin Reaves is one of the best players in the NBA and played with Los Angeles Lakers last season. He had a good time with the Lakers and performed very well this time he purposely declined an offer from another team despite being a free agent to be a part of the Lakers again. 

In the end, Reaves hard work paid off as he got a four-year, $54 million deal from the Lakers. He even went undrafted for this. 

As Reaves was having fun and had a good season, Russell Westbrook was suffering a lot. He had a really tough time in the 2022-23 NBA season and in the end, was sent away at the NBA Trade Deadline. After he was sent away even Anthony Davis took a little dig at Westbrook. Same with LeBron James.

So what was it all about? There are some conflicts going on between the two players. Reaves addressed this matter in All The Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson this week.

“He’s one of the best teammates I’ve ever had,” Reaves said on a recent episode of the All the Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.

“As a person, you can’t get much better. I got COVID (in) December of my rookie year in Minnesota. I was stuck in Minnesota for seven days so it was rough. But he reached out three or four times, asked if I need anything, offered to send me stuff, whatever I needed.”

Reaves didn’t stop there, though.

“As a teammate, he was always empowering everybody to really be better or do better,” he added.

“Like you said he gets a bad rep, and I don’t really understand why.”

Reaves doesn’t have the habit of lying or anything like that, so if he’s saying what he said, then it’s most likely to be the point. 

Let’s wait for the NBA 2023-24 to begging to see Reaves’ performance again. 

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