The Los Angeles Lakers made several changes to their roster at the February trade deadline which changed their fortunes last season. Rob Pelinka brought in new players, changed the rotation and added great depth to the roster. He added versatile wing defenders, additional size and some perimeter scoring. These changes transformed the team completely.
Suddenly a team that was struggling to secure wins, started putting things together in place and a deep playoff run followed. Austin Reeves also cemented his place in the starting lineup and did exceptionally well in the playoffs.
Although the Lakers were swept by the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals, it was still a great outing for Austin and his team.
Speaking to Zach Lowe on his ‘The Lowe Post’ podcast, Reeves revealed that after the new players came in the players hardly had any time to gel at the same level as the Nuggets. He shared that Denver has been building their championship rotation for multiple years while the Lakers formed the team recently and the players were together for a few months.
“I felt like it was hard for us to get to that level of even just a system because we didn’t have the time,” Reaves said. “Like, they were all together basically the whole year. They played 82 games before the postseason, being able to figure things out, you know, a lot of things in that span of time.”
The youngster also spoke very highly of the Lakers team that was built on the trade deadline. They have added more to that roster during this off-season. He feels that the Lakers are one of the deepest rosters in the NBA over the offseason and will contend for the NBA Championship this time.
“We brought in, a lot of guys that are super talented. I would argue we probably have the most talented roster in the league from top to bottom. Getting Christian Wood on a minimum [contract,] Gabe [Vincent] coming from the finals. We have a lot of guys that are super talented. And like I said, just getting this time to really build a foundation with one another is gonna help us a lot.”
Austin Reeves who was the third best player for the Lakers after LeBron James and Anthony Davis during the playoffs last season will have a big role to play for the Lakers in the upcoming season.
