The Lakers locked up Austin Reaves in late June on the richest contract ever given to an undrafted player. Six days later, LeBron James told them he was leaving, handing Reaves the second seat in the offense next to Luka Dončić. The talent to hold that seat isn’t in question. The availability is.

The Job Just Got Bigger

James is no longer on the roster. James informed the Lakers he would not be returning for next season on June 30, and a day later the team transformed the roster with Dončić squarely as the focal point. That removes the third ballhandler who used to absorb creation duty on nights the offense stalled.

Reaves can carry it. He averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds last season despite missing two significant chunks of the year with injuries that followed him into the postseason. When he’s on the floor, he’s a genuine secondary engine; the qualifier in that sentence is the whole problem.

The Injuries Have Become a Pattern

This is not a one-off. Reaves played in just 51 games last season thanks to an oblique injury and a strained left calf that sidelined him for 19 straight games from Christmas to February. The oblique was the worse of the two for the Lakers’ purposes.

He had been out since April 2 with strained oblique muscles, missing the final five games of the regular season and the first four games of the postseason. That is a player unavailable for exactly the stretch when his creation would matter most.

The trend is what unsettles. Reaves played all 82 games in 2023-24 and had appeared in 129 consecutive regular-season games before a left pelvic contusion in late November 2024. Since that streak ended, the interruptions have piled up — the contusion, then the calf, then the oblique.

The Bet the Lakers Already Made

Los Angeles didn’t hedge. Reaves signed a four-year, $185 million maximum contract to return, with a player option for the final season in 2029-30. In 2026-27 he carries a cap hit of $41.25 million.

That is franchise-cornerstone money for a player who just missed 31 regular-season games. The Lakers made the call on availability being a blip, not a baseline — and that decision is now locked in, since Reaves cannot be traded until Jan. 15, 2027.

The Thin Insurance Behind Him

The fallback plan is modest. The Lakers signed Collin Sexton on a two-year contract worth around $19 million, and he figures to be the backup point guard behind both Dončić and Reaves. Sexton is a scorer, not a facilitator — last season he averaged 15.4 points and 3.3 assists across 68 games.

The steadier veteran guard who used to backstop the position is gone. Marcus Smart now plays for the Houston Rockets. If Reaves misses time again, creation falls to Sexton and, ultimately, back onto Dončić — who has his own recent history of soft-tissue trouble.

The Bottom Line

The most overlooked risk on this roster isn’t fit or defense. It’s that the Lakers have built their offensive floor around two guards, and one of them broke down twice last season, both times in the soft tissue — the second time with April on the line.

Reaves doesn’t need to prove he can pass or score at a higher volume; he showed both last season before his body quit on him. He needs to prove he can do it in 70-plus games, through a playoff series, without another calf or oblique writing the ending. Until he does, the Lakers’ biggest question in the post-LeBron era isn’t whether Austin Reaves is good enough. It’s whether he’ll be there.