Nobody sustains an 82% true shooting percentage, so the number Austin Reaves has put up through three games is not worth arguing about. The question underneath it is: can the guard the Los Angeles Lakers just paid $180 million over four years stay elite now that he is the clear second option behind Luka Dončić? The answer is yes, and the reason has nothing to do with his jump shot.
Reaves Came Into This Start With a Track Record
Reaves did not arrive here on a hot week. Last season he averaged 23.3 points with a 64.1% true shooting mark over 51 games, and his career figure is 63.2%.
The foul line drives it. Reaves took 7.3 free throws a game at 87.1% last season, and in the Oct. 25 win at Utah he scored 29 points on 12 field-goal attempts and 13 free throws. Drawing fouls does not depend on whether the rim is kind on a given night, which makes it the steadiest part of a scorer’s game.
A bigger role also does not have to mean worse shots. Against Utah, Dončić scored 52 points on 30 attempts while Reaves needed only 12 shots. Redick has said he talked to Reaves about playing with patience and letting the game come to him. A second option who picks his spots next to a star who handles the ball this much has a good setup for staying efficient.
The Threes Are Doing Too Much of the Work
The 82 is mostly a three-point number. Reaves is 8 of 13 from deep so far, or 61.5%, against a career 37.0% from three. His 63.9% from the field compares with 48.4% for his career. Both numbers will come down, and probably fast.
Last season gives a better look at what a bigger role does to him. When LeBron James did not play in 2025-26, Reaves averaged 28.4 points, 7.8 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game, shooting 48.9% from the field and 35.7% from three. The scoring jumped; the percentages stayed about normal.
He is also turning it over more, at 4.3 a game through three games against 3.0 last season. And he played 51 of 82 games last season. An efficiency rate is only worth the minutes behind it.
The Stat to Watch Is Free-Throw Attempts, Not Three-Point Percentage
The skeptics are right about the number and wrong about the question. The three-point shooting will fall back toward his career mark, and his true shooting will drop with it. Nothing in these three games suggests the new role pushes him below the 63-64% level he has already shown.
The without-LeBron numbers are the strongest point against him, and they are less damaging than they look. Shooting 48.9% from the field and 35.7% from three, plus an 87% free-throw shooter getting to the line often, still adds up to very good efficiency. Those were also his numbers as the main option; this season he is the second one.
So the stat that matters is not his three-point percentage, which everyone knows is coming down. It is free-throw attempts. If he is still getting to the line about seven times a night once the threes cool off, he finishes the season in the low 60s in true shooting, and the Lakers will have gotten exactly the player they paid for.
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