My main take is: not surprising. I wasn’t sure if Luka valued locking up years or recouping lost wages. The 3 year extension will allow him to, eventually, recover the money lost in the trade.
The other thing I’ve been happy to see is how active he’s been in recruiting free agents. LeBron took a “I like that guy who’s also my pal!” approach. On the Lakers it hasn’t worked. So, while the jury will be out on how astute he is in the type of players he tries to recruit, he definitely helped us bring the most talented (which does not always mean impactful…) available players
in free agency.
All in all this is what both sides wanted and dare I say needed. Luka probably was not super excited to lose millions of dollars. The Lakers would not have been happy if this dragged on past August, bad look all around. So both sides won.
The Lakers will also have ample cap space to help build a Luka-empowering team next summer. That will almost certainly include retaining Reaves, possibly LeBron and Rui and maybe even Ayton and Smart, depending on how the team performs.
Draft Day next summer could see some purple and gold fireworks, we’ll have a lot of grease at that moment in time.