YAHOO SPORTS Austin Reaves is in the midst of one of the best runs of play in the history of the NBA.

He just hit a game-winner Wednesday for the Los Angeles Lakers, and that wasn’t even the best night the former Oklahoma Sooners standout has had recently.

Reaves said he “blacked out” after the ball fell through the net, and he sprinted down the court toward the Lakers’ bench, where he was mobbed by his euphoric teammates.

“That guy is going to show up in the big moments,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “I’m not surprised. He’s done that many times in his career.”

These are his stats in the five games to start this season, with Luka Doncic missing the last three and LeBron James missing all five: 26 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 9-16 FG (7-10 FT) 25 points, 7 rebounds, 11 assists, 9-15 FG (5-5 FT) 51 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists, 12-22 FG (21-22 FT) 41 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 13-22 FG (12-14 FT) 28 points, 1 rebound, 16 assists, 9-24 FG (7-7 FT) Those would be remarkable numbers for any player in the NBA.

Reaves commented on his clutch play, “Everybody is looking at me, and in those situations, you have to be calm, be confident and lead your guys through it,” Reaves said. “We were up by 10 points or so late, and they went on a run. ... It’s hard to crumble in those situations. But you’ve got to keep energy high, you got to keep the spirit high.”

And then basketball fans remember that Reaves went undrafted.

At this point, it feels quite astonishing.

Reaves’ college journey was a long one, though. He’s the kind of lengthy-tenured college player that NBA teams often overlook.

He started his career at Wichita State, and even in his second season, he started only a third of the games and averaged 8.1 points.

He sat out a year after transferring to Oklahoma (remember when players had to do that?).

By the time he took the floor for OU, he had clearly improved tremendously. In 2019-20, he put up 14.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game.

And in his last season with the Sooners, in 2020-21, Reaves averaged 18.3 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.

His shooting wasn’t there yet, at just 30.5% from 3, another knock on his NBA potential.

But the story of Reaves is of a guy who never stopped getting better. That’s been true in the league, too, and it’s why he’s on such a historic run despite being a player that had doubters all the way along his journey.

And keep adding pages to his storybook basketball existence, having entered the league undrafted in 2021 and now, four years later, having scored the second- most points out of any player through the first week of the season, trailing only the Oklahoma City Thunder’s reigning NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

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