The Clippers may hand him the thing a rookie needs most, real minutes on a veteran team.
Keaton Wagler did not dominate Las Vegas from start to finish, and that is fine, because this award gets decided from October on, not in July.
What the 19-year-old out of Illinois showed the Clippers is that the moment does not shrink him.
He scored 23 points in a 104-82 win over the Jazz, then closed with 26 points, four rebounds and two assists in the overtime win over Minnesota that ended the team's Vegas schedule, a game in which the Clippers put up 128 points, which was a Summer League record.
The Vegas Audition
The full summer line was fine, since Wagler averaged 18.0 points on 38.6 percent shooting across his four games, and he was left off both All-Summer League teams.
The college résumé is the better predictor anyway.
He averaged 17.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists as a freshman while hitting 39.7 percent of his threes.
The Clippers saw enough to take him fifth overall, and the shooting numbers from Vegas matter less than how comfortable he looked by the end of the trip.
Summer League has always been a strange evaluation tool, since the rosters churn and the defenses are a step slow, so the smarter read is trajectory, and his trajectory across those two weeks only pointed one direction.
Opportunity Is the Separator
Rookie of the Year is an opportunity award, and few lottery picks walk into this much of it.
Los Angeles moved James Harden for Darius Garland during the season and sent Ivica Zubac to Indiana, so the roster around Wagler is veteran but no longer crowded in the backcourt, and Garland shot 43.8 percent from three in his 19 games as a Clipper.
One published projected depth chart already has Wagler starting next to Garland once the paused Kawhi Leonard trade is resolved, and the timetable on that investigation is reportedly still weeks away.
A 42-40 team that expects to compete will give its rookie guard meaningful minutes in games that matter, and voters notice production on teams that win.
That combination of situation and stage is rare for a top-five pick, because most of them land on rosters built to lose for another year or two, with numbers that pile up in games that stopped mattering by Thanksgiving.
Wagler gets the opposite setup, and the opposite setup is how this award usually gets won.
The Field He Has to Beat
The draft class above him is loaded, and ESPN has called the coming Rookie of the Year race possibly the deepest in recent memory.
The case for Wagler is about circumstances as much as talent.
No. 1 pick AJ Dybantsa was shut down after two Summer League games in Vegas, No. 2 pick Darryn Peterson committed eight turnovers in his Vegas debut, and Cameron Boozer made the All-Summer League first team in Memphis.
Those three will get numbers, but Wagler can get numbers plus wins, in a summer group where Sean Pedulla, who piled up 24 points and 11 assists in that Minnesota game, has also explained his growth as a playmaker.
Betting on the rookie with the cleanest path usually works out, and no path looks cleaner than his.
