Austin Reaves: Top-25 Offensive Player, 62% Available, and Now the Lakers' Clear No. 2
Reaves averaged 23.3 points on 64.1% true shooting last season — genuine top-25 production — but missed 31 games and was modeled before LeBron James left the roster. Here's what the numbers actually say.
Published: · Figures as of August 25, 2026
Asked: How good is Austin Reaves really?
A top-25 scoring season, clouded by 30 missed games and a roster that's since changed
Last season (2025-26, since the league is now between seasons), Austin Reaves averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists and 4.7 rebounds on 64.1% true shooting - a top-25 scoring and box-score-production season league-wide - but he was only on the floor for 51 of the Lakers' 82 games, and the model reading his forward scoring outlook was built on data that predates LeBron James's departure from the roster, which is likely the bigger force on his role next season than anything in last year's box score.
Production and efficiency, measured against the league
| Measure | Reaves, 2025-26 | League context |
|---|---|---|
| Points per game | 23.3 | 22nd of 359 qualified players |
| True shooting % | 64.1% | League pooled rate is 58.1% (individual-player mean 56.8%, SD 8.5) - about 0.9 SD above a typical qualified player |
| Game Score | 18.4 | 20th of 359 qualified players |
| Assist/turnover ratio | 1.85 (280 ast / 151 TO) | Outside the league's top 30 (topped by low-usage ball-movers like Tyus Jones at 6.36) |
So the production case is real and it's specifically an efficiency story: he wasn't among the league's most frequent scorers by shot volume, but he scored efficiently enough (64.1% TS, well clear of both the league's pooled rate and its typical player) that his overall box-score value (Game Score) ranks essentially in line with his scoring rank. His assist-to-turnover mark is unremarkable for a player log
ging 5.5 assists a game at that usage - that's a decent, not standout, playmaking number.
His role on the team
| Player | PPG |
|---|---|
| Doncic | 33.5 |
| Reaves | 23.3 |
| L. James | 20.9 |
Reaves was the Lakers' clear No. 2 scorer last season, well behind Luka Doncic (33.5 PPG) but ahead of LeBron James (20.9 PPG). James has since left the roster - the offseason arrivals are role players and depth additions (Collin Sexton, Quentin Grimes, Walker Kessler, Kevon Looney, among others), not another high-volume scorer - so Reaves looks likely to move up in the Lakers' offensive pecking order next to Doncic. That's an inference from roster composition, not a measured fact, since nothing in the data states an assigned role for next season.
Availability was the real constraint
Reaves played 51 of the Lakers' 82 games (62%) last season across four separate absence stretches: three games missed in early November, three in mid-December, a 19-game absence from December 28 to February 1, and five games in early April. Our injury record only goes back to August 13, 2026, so it doesn't reach that season - there's no cause on file for any of these stretches, and nothing here should be read as confirming or ruling out injury as the reason.
What DataBaller's own models say
- Sustainability (v4, as of 8/24, full confidence): 0.70 - right at the threshold the model treats as "process-supported." His final 20-game stretch (Feb 26-Apr 2) ran at 60.6% true shooting, about 0.6 standard deviations below his own two-year baseline of 63.7%, and scored about 1.1 points a game under what that baseline efficiency would predict (20.7 vs. an expected 21.7). The model's directional read is "up" - it expects his efficiency to normalize back toward that established baseline rather than keep sliding, which argues against reading his late-season efficiency dip as the start of a decline.
- Performance shift (v4, as of 8/24, full confidence): 0.23, a moderate reading. In that same 20-game window his three-point rate, assist rate and rebound rate per minute all sat modestly below his two-year baseline while his minutes ticked up (36.0 vs. a 34.4 baseline) - a mix the model reads only as "his recent role differs somewhat from his established one," not as evidence the change is durable; the backtest behind this metric found such deployment shifts more often partially unwind than persist.
- Scoring shift (v3, as of 8/24, full confidence): +0.30 points per game, which doesn't clear the model's own +/-1 point bar for calling a real rise or fall - so the central read is roughly flat, from 23.3 PPG last season to about 23.6. This is a lean (the model's forecasts track realized change with a rank correlation of about 0.26 historically), not a firm prediction, and - the point worth repeating - it's built entirely from last season's games and has no way to account for James's exit or any larger role Reaves inherits this fall.
What isn't measurable here
There's no way in this data to grade Reaves's defense - box_plus_minus, PER and on/off plus-minus are all unavailable in this data set - so this read is entirely offense and availability. A fuller "how good is he" verdict would need to weigh a defensive dimension this analysis can't see.
Bottom line (medium confidence): by the numbers, Reaves produced like a top-25 offensive player last season with efficiency well above league norms, but he was limited to 62% of his team's games, and the honest forward view is "expected to hold roughly steady" from a model that hasn't yet priced in the clearer path to touches that LeBron's departure opens up for him.