Part 1 – The Draft And My Pick
That was surprising.
Atlanta, with a 3% chance of winning the NBA draft lottery won it. Then came the lowly Wizards, and then, more relevantly here, the Rockets.
The Rockets pick, belonging to the Brooklyn Nets originally, pre James Harden trade, was expected to be pick #9. Instead, it’s pick #3.
Now, this draft is one of the more widely dismissed and derided in recent memory, and it seems for good reason. There’s no player that seems to have mastered a complete skill set appropriate for their age, and expected draft position. There are a ton of older collegiate players who look to be drafted far higher than they would normally be picked.
There are players who might put it all together, great non US athletes with good size and all the attributes you want, but can’t X very well right now. X being one (or more) of: shoot, defend, dribble, process the game, pass. There are a bunch of players who look like good defenders who can’t, and might never, shoot it.
Despite a resurgence of physicality inside in the NBA, look at the teams in Conference Finals. Three of them shoot it. A lot. Yes, Dallas has found defenders to support Luka and make some open looks, or big men to defend and dunk off PNR penetration in the same way the Rockets found such players to support peak James Harden.
So I’d argue, one again, and into the wind it seems, that the stat most associated with winning is points. Either easy looking points in quantity, like the Pacers, who always seem to be in games despite not defending that well because they can just fill it up, or tough points that can be scored under duress, when marginal scorers just stop scoring, like Jalen Brunson or The Anointed One, Ant Edwards (more on him in a later article).
If only there was a player in this draft who could be available to the Rockets that combined good shooting, good passing, and showed surprisingly effective defense while coming from a program with a history of producing not good, but great, players at his position.
Wait. There is. It’s Reed Sheppard, guard, Kentucky.
After diving into analysis of Sheppard the main critique seems, when stripped of its coded language boil down to “He’s a goofy-looking not freakishly tall white American, and I simply don’t believe in that profile.”
I believe if Reed Sheppard was Radovan Pastira (I probably got the form of the last name wrong, if so let me know in the comments), and he played for Partisan, he’d be looked upon far more favorably. And his haircut would be less scrutinized.
Let’s run down the critiques:
“He’s not super athletic.” He jumped higher than anyone at the NBA draft combine. To which the reply was “Yeah, well, you can game that.” Yes, and everyone does game that, and he was still the best at it. What do we mean by athleticism? Usually it’s “Run Fast, Jump High.” I think that’s a canard.
Watch Alperen Sengun move and tell me he’s not athletic. See something like Steph Curry’s freakish eye hand coordination and tell me how much his straight line speed matters. What makes an athlete great is being able to apply that athleticism in game. Is Luka Doncic athletic? Is Nikola Jokic? Is James Harden? Jalen Brunson? Fred Van Vleet? At this point I’ve seen hundreds of draft busts who could jump out of the gym, but couldn’t actually play basketball at an NBA level.
Also, the Rockets are already a team of freak athletes, with probably the best overall athlete in the NBA in Amen Thompson. Followed by Jalen Green, Cam Whitmore, and Tari Eason. Does a Rockets combo guard have to be an insane athlete?
Next up – “He’s small.” He tested just under 6’3” without shoes. That’s fine for a guard who can do guard things. Especially on a team that has overall good size at backcourt and wing spots, like the Rockets. You have to distinguish between current, pretty real, measurements without shoes and older ones where it was “Well, SGs are 6’5” and up, so he’s 6’5”.” When maybe that player is just under 6’4”.
I’d argue, in any case, that what a Rockets combo guard most needs to be able to do is shoot, pass, and guard acceptably.
Good news.
Reed Sheppard is a freakish, outlier, shooter. (Never discount the Rockets ability to ruin that, but still.)
How freakish a shooter?
He shot 52% from three on 4.4 attempts per game. This is the sixth highest overall 3pt shooting percentage since the measure began in 1992 and third for a power school. One caveat, most of the names on that list of players aren’t household ones. Steph Curry, for comparison’s sake, shot 41%. Sheppard’s 83% FT number suggests that while 52% might be somewhat lucky, a 40%+ number seems reasonable. Sheppard took 144 attempts in one season of basketball at Kentucky, but was sharing an offense with another likely high draft pick or two. Curry, in three seasons of basically being Davidson’s offense, shot over 1,000 three pointers on roughly 10 attempts per game. (Yes, if there was ever a case of a great shooting stat verifying in college, it’s that one. KHAN!)
Anyhow, there’s every reason to believe Sheppard will be a good shooter. There’s every reason to believe the Rockets offense would get him open looks to cash in with FVV and Sengun in the picture, but players like Green, Whitmore and Thompson are (with one exception) willing passers and generate offensive pressure. Sheppard’s 2pt shooting is good, as well, at 56% and his TS% was an immaculate 70%.
Oh, so he’s a gunner? Not at all. He averaged 8.5 assists against 3.7 turnovers on a Per40 minute basis. Sheppard produced a freakish, otherworldly, steal rate of 3.4 per40. Steals is a stat that both correlates well to NBA defensive success and translates better than almost any other from college to the NBA.
He’s not an older prospect, like so many in this draft, turning 20 in late June.
From an analytics perspective there’s a lot to love about Sheppard, and very little not to love. I don’t know how long his arms are, nor do I really care, as the shooting and steals are an otherworldly combination already in a prospect, and what else are you wanting his arms for in that case? He averaged a little over a block per 40 minutes anyway, which is fine in a guard.
Qualitatively he seems to be a gamer, unselfish, team-first and all those other cliches that sound silly, but end up being valuable, if they’re true. Looking at his frame, he’s already fairly solid looking, but will probably tend to fill out more.
The Rockets need back up point guard play, and shooting. Well, here it is, with every chance of being in the form of a scorer with decent defense. I hope the Rockets believe the story the analytics tell about Sheppard as they did about Sengun.
If Sheppard is available, I hope the Rockets draft him.