Meet the secret behind Austin Reaves success and delirious confidence: His brother, Spencer
There’s a reason Austin Reaves has arrived at this moment. He grew up on a 300-acre cow farm in a town with fewer than 1,200 people, spending his days doing one thing. Competing against his older brother, Spencer. Long before Austin secured the richest contract in NBA history for a player who went undrafted (four years, $185 million), he was an underdog who kept losing at everything in a backyard in Newark, Arkansas.It turned him into one of the greatest stories in the NBA. But don’t tell his brother that. “I’ll still tell anybody I meet that’s so obsessed with him — to me, he’s still a loser,” Spencer told The California Post, chuckling.“I’m like, the guy is a loser.”That was said with as much love as an older brother could muster.
They’re best friends.Spencer, who plays professional basketball overseas in Germany, is the reason Austin devoted himself to the sport.
And whenever Austin has doubted himself, Spencer has been there for him.Austin has credited Spencer for his NBA career.“If I had to give appreciation mostly to someone it would be him just for paving that path for me,” Austin said in an interview with NBC Los Angeles. During their childhood, Austin and Spencer would pass their days in fierce competitions in basketball, darts, pingpong, cards, board games or even sprinting toward random objects.The problem? Austin was smaller, skinner and shorter. “He never got to win anything,” Spencer said.It sharpened Austin into someone who was never intimidated.
Someone who always believed in himself.Someone who never gave up. It made Austin fearless when he took the court alongside LeBron James.
It made him not hesitate to lovingly trash talk Luka Doncic.It turned him into a player who averaged 23.3 points, 5.5 assists, 1.1 steals and a true shooting percentage of 64% last season, helping lead the Lakers to the No.
4 seed in the West. Those childhood competitions weren’t for the faint of heart.
They were among two gr...