New report shows how much Lakers will favor Austin Reaves over LeBron James in NBA free agency

It's unfortunate that the Los Angeles Lakers have gotten to this point with LeBron James, but the 41-year-old certainly is at the back end of his career, and there's absolutely no debate that at some point over the next year or so, it's going to be his final season in the NBA.

The Lakers simply have to decide whether they want the final year of James, even if that comes at a ridiculously high cost. The fact of the matter is that James is still a very good player and has the opportunity to help a team win a championship, but he probably isn't worth $40 million to $50-plus million, which is what he can get.

The Lakers also have to consider other players, including Austin Reaves, who could be in line for a $40-plus million contract.

From the sound of the latest report, it seems like the Lakers are going to favor Reaves in these contract discussions over James, even if that's seemingly the unpopular thing to do in the fan base.

"There's two big differences between LeBron and Reaves right now. One, LeBron is a short-term solution. Reaves is viewed by the franchise as a long-term cornerstone. So if it comes down to, would you rather pay Reaves $40 million for the next five years, or LeBron $40 million for one year, they're going to prioritize the long-term contract here," Jovan Buha said.

"Reaves is more of a priority for the Lakers than LeBron is. That's just a fact. The second part of it is that Reaves is going to have a market. And LeBron—maybe he wants to go to Chicago, or Brooklyn, I do not foresee that—but the issue with LeBron is that all of the teams that are going to want LeBron are going to have somewhere between a vet minimum offer and a non-taxpayer mid-level exception offer.

“So LeBron can't leverage the market against the Lakers the same way Reaves can. Reaves can go get a monster contract offer from Chicago or Brooklyn, and put pressure on the Lakers to be like, 'They're about to pay me $40 million annually. Maybe I'll take a [hair less] than that, but you need to give me that fifth year, and it needs to be pretty close to $40 million.' LeBron is not going to have the same leverage."

In the Lakers' defense, it would make sense to keep Reaves on the roster over James, even if there's still an argument that James is a better player than Reaves. 

The Lakers and their fan base have to understand how much younger the Oklahoma product is, and that's going to be the biggest factor in most of these decisions.

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