Austin Reaves consolidated himself this campaign as the Lakers’ third star, behind teammates Luka Doncic and LeBron James, and contributed heavily to the team earning 50 wins during the regular season. What’s the secret behind his success? The player says that JJ Redick was a key factor. 

The truth is, the young guard had a breakout season this year, and proved to have what it takes to become an All-Star talent in Los Angeles. His coach is well aware of this, and decided to give him a bigger offensive responsibility. “It was great… I told him it was the most fun I’ve had playing basketball in a long time.

“Every day going to work, I enjoyed going to work. It wasn’t like it was like ‘Ah, I gotta go do this again.’ They made it fun every day,” he acknowledged during a recent interview with Lakers Nation. ” The 27-year-old averaged 20.2 points per game, after 73 appearances in the regular season.

When talking about Redick’s greatest assets, he was praised his high standards. “His intensity, his care factor is almost higher than anybody’s if not high than anybody’s. He’d be the first to tell you, I’m sure he’s said it publicly that he wishes he might’ve done a couple things different in that series,” Austin shared.

The point guard then added: “He holds himself to a high standard, and that’s all you can ask for a coach, all you can ask for a player, to continue to hold yourself accountable and do whatever you think is the best that can help us.”

However, not every team inside the purple and gold roster played as well as he had hoped for under JJ, as Gabe Vincent recently expressed remorse for his poor displays during the playoffs. During the past month of April, he made just 35.7% of his shot attempts and went just 30.8% from beyond the arc.

“I was glad to play a full year after last year and being injured, playing only a handful of games,” said the Nigerian athlete. “It was great to be there for the whole season. I had some stretches where I found some good rhythm, but I would’ve loved to have more of an impact tonight obviously and in this series as well.”

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