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Austin Reaves #15 of the Los Angeles Lakers reacts for a LA Clippers foul during the first half at Crypto.com Arena on November 25, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
The Los Angeles Lakers announced Friday that Austin Reaves will be re-evaluated in four weeks after being diagnosed with a grade 2 left calf strain. However, injury expert Jeff Stotts expects the star guard to miss a minimum of 40 days of action, meaning he may not be back until after the All-Star break.
“Austin Reaves Injury News: The calf muscle complex is comprised of multiple muscles, including the two-headed gastrocnemius muscle and the soleus. The muscles share a conjoined tendon, the Achilles. The average time lost for all Grade 2 calf strains in the NBA is ~40.1 days,” he wrote, predicting the Austin Reaves return timeline.
Stotts, an athletic trainer, has accurately predicted the injury timeline of several NBA players in the past. Most recently, he indicated that Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama would miss at least 30 days with a calf strain, a timeline that he was proven right about.
Austin Reaves Out Until Mid-Feb?
If Reaves is indeed ruled out until mid-February, he could potentially miss the next 20 Lakers games, including nationally-televised contests against the San Antonio Spurs on Jan. 7, the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 20, the Dallas Mavericks on Jan. 24, the New York Knicks on Feb. 1 and the Golden State Warriors on Feb. 7.
The NBA’s All-Star Break will run through Feb. 13-20, with this year’s All-Star festivities slated to take place in Los Angeles between Feb.13-15.
Historically, teams prefer to bring back their injured stars after the All-Star Break rather than rushing them back before the midseason interval. As such, it should not surprise anyone if Reaves doesn’t return to the Lakers lineup until the Feb. 20 contest against the LA Clippers, the first game after the All-Star Break.
Out of Awards Contention
The devastating Austin Reaves injury news means the fifth-year guard is set to be disqualified from running for the Most Improved Player award, an All-NBA Team and the All-Star festivities. Although fans can still attempt to vote Reaves into the All-Star Team, it seems unlikely that coaches and media — the other stakeholders in the voting process — will reward him with an All-Star nod amid his injury absence.
Reaves was considered a lock to make the All-Star Team and had a strong case for Most Improved Player. The undrafted guard has upped his points (20.2 to 26.6), assists (5.8 to 6.3), rebounds (3.7 to 4.5) and FG% (46.0 to 50.7) significantly from last season, turning into a bona fide top-20 or top-25 player in the league. In fact, Reaves is ranked eighth in the live Basketball Reference MVP Tracker for spearheading a bunch of Lakers wins earlier in the season when LeBron James was sidelined with injury.
The injury absence may also affect Reaves’ free agency this offseason. After turning down a four-year, $89M extension with the Lakers last offseason, Reaves was expected to command a five-year max contract worth $241M from the Lakers, or a four-year, $178M deal from another team in the open market. The 27-year-old told ESPN’s Dave McMenamin last month that he’s not eying “a gigantic number that don’t make sense,” hinting that he could be willing to take a pay cut to stay with the Lakers, the team that took a chance on him in 2021 after he went undrafted.
Sai Mohan covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan
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