The Boston Celtics are over three months removed from defeating the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals, however, even capturing a record-setting 18th title alone doesn’t come with inherent league-wide respect.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were first-hand examples that even a championship isn’t enough to garner validation once USA Basketball assembled and embarked on its gold medal run in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Tatum got DNP’d twice and Brown got snubbed completely, even having signed the first and second-largest contracts in NBA history respectively. That trend of brushing the reigning champs continued once Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves was asked a simple and direct question while golfing: which NBA player would Reaves beat 1-on-1, no questions asked?
“I’ll play Sam Hauser,” Reaves said on a YouTube vlog. “NBA champion by the way — congrats. He can shoot it.”
Reaves added: “I’ll play anybody 1-on-1. I’m not saying I’ll win, but I’ll play.”
A direct backhanded compliment? An inadvertent dig? Regardless, Reaves highlighting Hauser as the player of the roughly 450 currently listed on an NBA roster suggests that the part-time golfer and full-time LeBron James third-string sidekick views Boston’s sharpshooter as a free lunch, easy money target. Hauser is recognized as a one-dimensional player primarily because the 26-year-old utilizes the 3-point line for offense more than any other area of the floor, knocking down 42.2% of shots from beyond the arc on a career-high 5.9 attempts. Defensively, Hauser got targeted routinely by opponents with forced 1-on-1 situations aimed at attacking the 6-foot-7 forward.
Celtics present of basketball operations Brad Stevens, on the other hand, valued Hauser enough to sign the undrafted Virginia product to a four-year, $45 million extension this offseason rather than allow Hauser to test the free agency market. Coming off a career-best campaign in which he averaged seven points and 3.5 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench, Hauser is poised to play a key role again for Boston in 2024-25.
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