Refusing to renew the contract early? Pelinka is in a dilemma, the Lakers may lose Reeves

This year's offseason, it will be a very busy summer for Los Angeles Lakers general manager Pelinka. Because in addition to actively operating transactions in the free market and better building a championship lineup for the Lakers, he will also face multiple contract renewal negotiations for the team. Among them, the contract renewal negotiations between LeBron James and Austin Reeves are the most important! Although James has not yet decided whether to execute next season's players, according to previous reports, James is likely to jump out of the contract and seek a new contract again. In addition, James may not be willing to strengthen the Lakers' signings this summer and make big concessions in the contract amount as he did last year. Because even though James was willing to cut his salary significantly last summer, the Lakers were unable to introduce the championship puzzle that James wanted.

For the Lakers who were eliminated in the first round of this season, if they want to continue to win the championship next season, they must introduce big insiders this summer, otherwise the slogan of winning the championship will eventually be empty talk. Because from the first round of this year's playoffs, it can be seen that poor inside strength has become a fatal injury for the Lakers, which will seriously hinder their goal of winning the championship! Of course, the premise of the Lakers' championship is to ensure that Doncic, James and Reeves stay at the team at the same time. Otherwise, even if they introduce ideal inside big men, they will still be unable to have the hard ability to compete for the championship. Therefore, renewing Reeves in advance is almost as important as renewing James!

Austin Reeves performed poorly this year's playoffs and failed to become a proud winning helper around Doncic James. This also made him from the best third in the league that everyone praised in the regular season to a pseudo-star who cannot play high-end games. But then again, the Lakers' elimination was not a single person's fault, but the serious flaws in their lineup configuration. Therefore, Reeves should not be blamed for the Lakers being eliminated! According to previous reports from Lakers' team reporter Buha, the Lakers are not expected to make major adjustments to the lineup this summer. In addition to James and Luka Doncic, Austin Reeves is now regarded as "untradeable".

Recently, NBA reporter Ricardo Sandoval wrote an article about the renewal issues that Austin Reeves will face this offseason. It is reported that Austin Reeves is eligible to sign a four-year early contract renewal with the Lakers this summer worth $89.2 million. Ricardo Sandoval said that the contract renewal that the Lakers can offer for Reeves is an upgrade compared to his current four-year, 53 million. The Lakers hope Austin Reeves can renew his contract early, but are expected to refuse to renew his contract and will jump out of the contract next summer to test the free market. By then, Reeves is expected to pursue a big contract with an annual salary of 42.5 million.

Since Austin Reeves is likely to refuse to renew his contract early this summer, this puts Lakers General Manager Pelinka in a dilemma. After all, once Austin Reeves tests the free market tomorrow, this means that the Lakers will lose him, and their championship plan will be stranded! Because Austin Reeves plays a very important role in the Lakers system now, it is difficult for the free market to find a team leader who matches the Lakers system in this way.

In this way, this makes it very difficult for Pelinka to deal with Reeves. If he doesn't trade, he will have only one year's right to use it. So, this makes the Lakers' operations more cautious this summer! Unless they can win the championship next season or make a major breakthrough in the playoffs, the Lakers will probably really lose Reeves next summer. What do you think about this?