The Los Angeles Lakers’ upcoming offseason will say a lot about the franchise’s seriousness about winning a title in 2026-27. An uneventful summer could signal that continued mediocrity is on the horizon. At the same time, a blockbuster move or two could significantly alter their ceiling for the 2026-27 season (in a positive way).
In a new hypothetical trade idea, the Lakers would select the latter by using Austin Reaves to help them swing a big-time trade for a 31-year-old Eastern Conference All-Star.
“Reaves opts out of his $14.9 million for 2026-27 to ink a four-year, $172 million contract with the Lakers as part of a sign-and-trade to the (Milwaukee) Bucks,” Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus wrote Thursday. “Milwaukee triggers a first-apron hard cap at a projected $209.1 million to take in four Lakers for Antetokounmpo. Nick Smith Jr. is absorbed separately on a minimum contract, but he delays the entire transaction until July 12. If that’s an issue, Bronny James can be substituted to push the trade up to July 6.”
“The Lakers aggregate Reaves, (Jake) LaRavia, and Smith into an expanded traded player exception for Antetokounmpo, with a first-apron hard cap. The team receives trade exceptions for (Jarred) Vanderbilt and (Dalton) Knecht. The 2031 first-round pick is unprotected, but the 2032 swap is top-5 protected; otherwise, it conveys as a 2033 second-rounder.”
Pincus’ monster trade proposal has one major obstacle to it becoming highly realistic: Luka Doncic. The 27-year-old superstar point guard has enjoyed sharing the floor with Reaves in Los Angeles thus far, so much so that The Athletic’s Dan Woike and Sam Amick reported that he wouldn’t be thrilled with a Lakers-Bucks deal that would send Reaves to Milwaukee for Antetokounmpo. “Multiple league sources said that belief was best illustrated when Dončić told people within the organization that he wouldn’t want Reaves included in any potential trade packages for Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo,” Woike and Amick stated on May. 12.
Does that mean the Lakers would have to bow out of the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes entirely and turn their attention elsewhere? No, but it would probably force them to take their franchise player’s demands seriously and find an alternative way to bring Antetokounmpo to the Lakers.
Hopefully, for the Lakers’ sake, Doncic becomes open to a Reaves-centered trade for the Bucks’ star forward, but it’ll likely take a convincing pitch to force a change of heart.
