Austin Reaves believes the Lakers have the pieces to compete for a championship this upcoming season

The Los Angeles Lakers may be thin on believers outside of the organization thanks to their disappointing offseason, but it seems like there are folks within the walls of the franchise who like the team’s chances going into the new season.

Austin Reaves appears to be one of them.

“I like where we’re at,” Reaves said. “I think that we have what we need to go compete for a championship. You look back at the Denver series last year, and I forget the statistic, but I think we led for like 140 minutes to their 38 minutes or somethin’, and we get beat in five, 4-1, which you can’t even really wrap your mind around.

“But it was just a couple sequences down the stretch that we didn’t execute and they executed, and if we do, we beat them in that series, and we go on and have an opportunity to play Minnesota.

“So I like where we’re at, and then obviously gettin’ J.J. [Redick] as I was talkin’ about, someone that’s a fierce competitor that we seen in Vegas for Summer League, and he came up to us and was like, ‘I’ve been starin’ at a whiteboard for three hours tryna figure out how we’re gonna do this stuff.’

“So you could just tell the intensity that he has. You know the time that he’s gonna put in.”

Outside of rookie additions and staffing changes, the Lakers have had a very quiet summer and may enter the new campaign with a roster that looks very similar to last season’s.

Last season’s roster did enough to flirt with 50 regular-season wins, with the squad ultimately finishing 47-35, but the Lakers fell to the Denver Nuggets in the playoffs as Reaves mentioned.

Reaves is right that by some measures, the Lakers played the Nuggets tough in the 2024 postseason, and really, the same can be said about L.A.’s meeting with Denver in the 2023 Western Conference Finals. But ultimately, the Lakers are 1-8 in their last nine playoff games — all against the Nuggets — regardless of how close some of the games were.

Barring any roster changes, L.A. will need to rely on internal growth and whatever new value Redick brings to the table this coming season. Reaves is certainly a prime candidate to take a step forward, as he’s entering his fourth NBA season and could benefit from playing under Redick.

Last season, Reaves averaged 15.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game while shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 36.7 percent from beyond the arc.

But it ultimately remains to be seen if the Lakers have enough to overcome their obstacles and emerge as title contenders once again, even if Reaves likes his team’s chances. The start of the 2024-25 season should give fans a better idea of what L.A. is working with.