Austin Reaves recently revealed that there was a fairly good chance for him to start his NBA career with the Detroit Pistons. As many NBA fans might be aware, Reaves is a young NBA star currently playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. He came under the radar of the NBA media and fans last season after helping the Lakers make it all the way to the Western Conference Finals.
Fans who have been following league activities will know that most of the basketball stars enter the league through the NBA Draft. However, there are a few exceptions that make it into the league through other methods.
Austin Reaves was also offered a two-way contract by the Detroit Pistons
Fans might know that the NBA Draft allows for 60 athletes to be drafted by the 30 teams via two rounds. However, there will always be a fair share of players who go undrafted and end up signing two-way contracts in order to play in the G League.
Since Austin stayed in college for longer than the average NBA prospect and was not hyped up by experts, no team across the league was really that interested in adding him to their roster. Although Detroit ended up making Austin the same offer the Lakers did, Reaves revealed that his agents helped him make the final decision.
“I gotta give all the praise to my agents. They’ve come in from that morning and was like look, we have a really good opportunity in LA, they’re really interested if you were to go undrafted on a two-way contract. When we got called at 42 at Detroit, that’s what they were offering…So we knew that we didn’t have to press to hear my name being called…My agents did a tier list of 1 to 5 and LA was at 2 so it was kind of a no-brainer…”