Reed Sheppard was pretty good last year for the Houston Rockets, don’t get it twisted. Was he great on defense? Far from it. But the Rockets were better when Reed was on the floor, and the numbers back that up. Houston was 17-4 when Sheppard was in the starting lineup. That made them 35-26 when he wasn’t, which boils down to an 81 percent winning percentage versus a 57 percent one.
The best long-range shooter on the team, Sheppard hit on 39.4 percent of his triples last year on a high volume of 7
attempts per game. We’ve talked endlessly here about Sheppard’s “gravity” in drawing other defenders to his three-point shot, thereby opening up spacing for his teammates, but on a team bereft of distance shooting, Sheppard was certainly underutilized at times.
He had a healthy 26.2 minutes per game, which is nothing to scoff at for a second-year player, but it still felt like Ime Udoka left a little something out there with his management of Sheppard’s court time. It still feels like that gravity wasn’t used properly.
Sheppard finished sixth overall in NBA Sixth Man of the Year voting after averaging 13.5 points, 3.4 assists, 2.9 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 0.7 blocks per game. As a starter, that was upped to 15.4 points, 4.9 assists, 3.9 rebounds, 2 steals and 1 block per game.
The most commonly-cited reason for Reed not forcing Udoka’s hand was his defense, and yes, there are numerous highlights of Sheppard the bull fighter. The one-on-one doesn’t always look great. But the data shows a +1.5 defensive box plus-minus (second on the team), it shows a 112 defensive rating (not great, but far from the black hole one would think), and he racked up 3.1 defensive win shares, which was fifth-best on the team, just below Kevin Durant (who played way more than Sheppard) at 3.2.
This illustrates that despite Sheppard’s limitations as a defender, he can be a part of a successful defense by playing to his strengths in his fast hands and suprising stock accrual numbers. Is he a good defender? No. Can he be part of a team that plays good team defense? Yes, and he has contributed to that good defense. Besides, isn’t Ime Udoka a defensive genius? He should be able to construct schemes that help benefit one of the league’s best long-distance gunners.
The Rockets didn’t exactly give Sheppard a vote of confidence, however, bringing in Marcus Smart to compete for guard minutes in addition to the return of Fred VanVleet and the signing of Bogdan Bogdanovich to hopefully add some three-point shooting to the lineup outside of Sheppard. Reed is going to have to prove himself, no doubt. But he looks bigger and stronger, which should help him with point-of-attack defense, and has another year of confidence under his belt.
If Sheppard can tighten up that defense, while maintaining his three-point shooting, and continuing to come into his own as a playmaker with VanVleet and Smart around to take up a lot of that slack as well, Sheppard very well could force Udoka’s hand. Our dude just turned 22 and is still dripping with potential. 2026-2027 is as good a year for an official breakout as any.
