I know that the Rockets pushed a huge pile of chips into the center of the table when they traded away their top scorer, and arguably their most valuable defender from last season’s 52-win team, for Kevin
Durant. I know Kevin Durant is a two-time champion, future Hall-of-Fame inductee, and arguably the greatest scorer of the basketball anyone has ever seen. However, the most important player for the Rockets in the 2025-2026 season just might be the 6-foot 2-inche guard from Kentucky, Reed Sheppard.
Some of you may be saying to yourselves… “Here he goes again!” To your point, you’re right, here I go. I don’t think it is such a stretch that the “point guard of the future” being suddenly thrust into the role of “the point-guard of right now” makes Reed Sheppard’s importance significantly higher than perhaps anyone anticipated. Let me be very clear, this was already a very important season for Sheppard. After losing Jalen Green’s scoring, and removing Cam Whitmore from the equation, the pressure was already on Reed to grow up fast and be ready to contribute off the bench in important minutes.
With the loss of Fred VanVleet, Sheppard finds himself possibly being the starting point guard of an NBA team with championship aspirations. No pressure, Reed. VanVleet only lead the Rockets to their lowest turnovers-per-game in franchise history two seasons ago (12.7) and again led them to one of their lowest turnover marks last season (13.9) Fred VanVleet was only responsible for hitting the biggest shots in the Rockets playoff run last season. Okay, well obviously Reed Sheppard shouldn’t have to worry about that last part, but so far in the pre-season, he has mostly been operating as a starter, which leads me to believe Ime Udoka is trying to access whether or not that will be his role come opening night versus the OKC Thunder on the night they hang their banner.
Should we have any reason to believe he is ready for that? Well, the short answer is… yes. We should. It is a small sample size, but in the three starts in Reed Sheppard’s career, he has averaged 19.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 2 steals, and 0.7 blocks in 36.4 minutes played. He shot 48.9-percent from the field, including 52-percent from the three-point line, averaging 8.3 attempts from there. Now, the Rockets got waxed in all three of those games, as they were resting most of their core rotation players, hence the reason Reed was starting against the Thunder, the Clippers, and the Lakers, who were all healthy and playing all their regular starters.
Although he had a plus/minus of -62 in those games, it’s fair to say that he held his own individually, against some of the best teams in the West, and he did it without the best players on his team playing. Now entering his second season, already looking more confident and seemingly being urged on by his coaches to stay aggressive in his penetration into the paint and taking shots when he’s got an opening, one would assume if he’s on the floor with the likes of Amen Thompson, Alperen Sengun, and Kevin F. Durant and he can just take care of the ball, make the right passes, and make shots at a similar clip to what he did in three starts… Reed Sheppard could be the most important player on the team. Besides Aaron Holiday, there is no other “point guard” on the roster, and really, Holiday is only listed as a point guard because of his height. His real strength is his shooting.
Reed Sheppard has an opportunity to display all the reasons Ime Udoka and Rafael Stone believed he was the best player in the 2024 NBA Draft. Playmaking, shooting, intensity and instinct on defense… Yeah, I know it seems crazy to put the hopes and dreams of an NBA franchise on the shoulders of a guy who looks like he sells Bibles, but my goodness, here we are. Ime Udoka is seemingly trying to make Reed Sheppard the Houston Rockets starting point guard. Does he look the part? No. Does he have even the tiniest amount of swag? Absolutely not. All I know is this team believes that he has “It” … What is “It” … Well, when the ball goes up in the air against the defending champs on October 21 in OKC, we will find out.
