Austin Reaves’ new four-year, $185 million maximum contract took the easiest decision off the Los Angeles Lakers’ summer board on Wednesday, locking the guard in alongside Luka Doncic for the foreseeable future.
The harder calls are still ahead, and they are arriving fast. Free agency opens June 30, but every team and player option on the roster must be resolved one day earlier, by the June 29 deadline.
For all the attention on whether LeBron James plays a 24th season, the decision that may do the most to shape the Lakers’ plans in the middle belongs to a quieter name. Deandre Ayton holds an $8.1 million player option for the 2026-27 season, and what he does with it sets the terms for how Los Angeles solves a center position it has wanted to upgrade since the day it traded for Doncic.
A bargain the Lakers may not be eager to keep
Ayton signed a two-year, $16.2 million deal with the Lakers last offseason after a buyout from the Portland Trail Blazers, and the $8.1 million option attached to it reads, on its face, like one of the better values on the roster.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft averaged 12.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game across 72 games last season while shooting 67.1 percent from the field. His career marks of 15.8 points and 10.1 rebounds per game sit above that line, and a productive starting center at that salary is the kind of contract most contenders would happily carry.
The complication is what the front office has said it wants. Reporting after the season pointed to Los Angeles seeking an upgrade in the middle, and the Lakers would not be disappointed if Ayton declined the option and freed the roster spot.
That tension defines his entire decision. The number is friendly, but the team’s appetite for keeping him at it is not guaranteed, and Ayton’s camp knows it heading into a market that opens in a matter of days.
Why the call cuts both ways
Ayton faces a genuine fork. Picking up the option guarantees him $8.1 million and a place on a roster built around Doncic, but possibly in a reduced role if the Lakers add a starter ahead of him. Declining it sends him into unrestricted free agency in search of a longer, larger deal, with the risk of having to accept another prove-it discount instead.
The insider read is split, which is part of what makes this worth tracking. Lakers reporter Jovan Buha said on the “Around The Beat” podcast that he leans toward Ayton opting in, arguing that the center’s regular-season production might justify a deal in the $15 million to $20 million range but that his playoff limitations make a long-term commitment hard to find.
The Athletic’s Dan Woike and Sam Amick framed it the other way, noting that Ayton played to his contract and could test the market for a bigger payday in Los Angeles or elsewhere.
The playoffs explain the disagreement. Ayton was strong in the first round against the Houston Rockets, averaging a double-double and holding his own defensively against All-Star center Alperen Sengun as the Lakers won the series. The second round told a different story.
He averaged 7.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per game on 39.3 percent shooting through the first three games of a sweep by the Oklahoma City Thunder, and his six-point outing in the closeout loss is the last image the league has of him in a Lakers uniform. The same player who looked like a bargain in April looked like a question mark in May.
How his choice reshapes the cap sheet
Ayton’s call does not stay contained to his own line on the ledger. It moves the Lakers’ entire summer math. Los Angeles projects to have roughly $50 million in cap space, but that figure is fragile and depends almost entirely on the team’s own free agents.
Reaves’ new $185 million deal is the anchor of the backcourt, with he and Doncic accounting for roughly $90.8 million in combined salary next season.
Then there is James, whose roughly $59.5 million cap hold is the largest figure on the books that the team itself controls and whose decision gates how much room is left for everyone else.
Ayton fits into that puzzle in two very different ways. If he opts in, his $8.1 million salary becomes a clean, movable contract the Lakers can attach to a trade for a more impactful center, which is exactly the kind of matching money a deal like that requires.
If he opts out, the Lakers shed the salary and gain flexibility, but they also lose their incumbent starter for nothing and must replace him from a thin market. One path keeps an asset on hand; the other clears the decks but raises the stakes of the search.
The center dominoes behind him
Almost every center scenario the Lakers might pursue runs through Ayton first. Doncic has made it known that he wants the front office to add a real presence in the middle, and the team’s own messaging since the trade has pointed at the same need.
The open-market options are limited. Walker Kessler is widely viewed as the dream target, but he is a restricted free agent and the Utah Jazz are expected to match any offer sheet he receives. The trade route is the other lane, and it is the one that has produced the most noise this week, including a report that would send LeBron James to Cleveland for Jarrett Allen.
Each of those paths interacts with Ayton’s status. If he opts in and the Lakers still chase a starter, he becomes either a trade piece or a high-end backup. If he opts out, the search loses its floor, and Los Angeles has to find a center before it can think about the luxury of an upgrade. For a fuller look at how those names stack up, the Lakers’ realistic center options all share the same financial bottleneck that Ayton’s decision either eases or tightens.
What to watch before June 29
Ayton is not the only name on the clock. Marcus Smart, the 2021-22 Defensive Player of the Year, is widely expected to decline his own option and test free agency after averaging 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game last season, and the Lakers must also sort guarantee dates on younger players. But Ayton’s is the choice with the clearest downstream effect on the roster’s shape.
The sequence matters. Until the Lakers know whether they are starting their center search from scratch or working with a movable contract already in place, the rest of the plan cannot fully take form. Reaves is settled and the backcourt is set. The frontcourt waits on a quiet decision that one of the most polarizing players in the league has to make by the end of the month, and it will tell Los Angeles which kind of summer it is about to have.
