Without the gravity of an Anthony Davis screen Austin Reaves looks like a completely different player. He can not get any separation at all against his defender. Having saying that Austin is still an elite off ball role player that can occasionally be your secondary playmaker. He just is not anywhere close to a primary playmaker.
He isn’t a lead guard. He can do it eventually, but his ball handling isn’t tight enough to be “the guy”. He is at his best when he is just “Him”.
I think fans underestimate or are even unaware of how much difference watching film makes for organized basketball. Reaves was an unknown with skills last year. The leap is whether he has the knowledge of the game to pre-empt how teams are going to guard him and adapt.
Bingo.
Last year, AR surprised opponents. They were unprepared for him and underestimated him, thinking he’d eventually fizzle out.
This year, they’re playing him honestly and exposing his weaknesses. He’s not a great ballhandler/driver, and he’s not a pure shooter. He was just aggressive last year and fearlessly attempted to score in appropriate situations. He also got a bit hot. But, honestly, I was never that impressed with the way he scored (I was just happy the ball went in when it did).
He’s supposed to be a feel-good, crowd favorite, spark plug, 6MOTY-candidate type of guy who gets pulled when defense is needed.
Laker Nation went crazy, misevaluating Reaves and the supposed “depth” of the team.