Buha I can confirm that people in the Lakers organization have not been happy with the Rich Paul Podcast The initial stuff saying Theyre not contenders And now recently saying they should Trade Austin Reaves for Jaren Jackson Jr who they basically average the same amount of rebounds

Austin Rivers On Rich Pauls Pod He's got to stop Why do you have a Podcast Everything he says is gonna be a representation of LeBron You are an agent youre supposed to be in the background You coming out at the forefront and giving your opinions on the game saying stuff it doesnt work

Windhorst 2 days ago the Lakers and Austin Reaves' camp were pretty far apart in their discussions about where his contract would land Then the Lakers yesterday pivoted increasing their offer somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 per season

Draymond says he was surprised at the Reaves contract I didn't expect the Lakers to go so high On a team where you had Austin Luka and LeBron the team didn't fare as well as one would hope I thought Lakers would stand pat and negotiate it down Austin had some struggles in the playoffs

Buha I spoke with several Lakers people this weekend more often than not there was an acknowledgment that we might have taken a slight step back this season but this is about the longer-term vision here with building this core from the ground up around Luka and Austin

Charania I'm told over the last 24-48 hours the Lakers came to the understanding that Austin Reaves had multiple max contracts available to him in free agency The Detroit Pistons were coming aggressively for him So that's why today the Lakers stepped up to give him this deal

Colin Cowherd Lakers didnt want to re-sign LeBron They really didnt I trust my sources Lakers didn't want to be bullies and say LeBron get out of here They didnt want to alienate Rich Paul who could have great players we want to sign Let's let Rich Paul and LeBron win the PR game today