Reed has shown he belongs in the court with NBA players, something many doubted last season after his pedestrian start to his career. I just wonder why it seems Durant and Sengune hesitate to pass to Reed when he’s wide open? Are they asserting their own alpha scorer mentality? Because Durant and Sengune freely pass to other Rockets players, not named Reed. I just hope Reed starts calling for the ball more, and making himself visible. He had a great 3 point shot that should not be under wraps. If he shoots 15-20 3’s a game; well it’s acceptable!!!! Well that means he’s spotting the team 18-24 points.
I'm very much in the camp that Reed is a rhythm player, needs to be able to play through mistakes, worry about Ime jerking him around too much, and that the lumps are worth it when he struggles because either he needs to be ready for the playoffs or we need to trade for a PG. But objectively, following a 3 game stretch where he lost his spot in the pecking order to Holiday and Davison, he's responded by playing extremely well over the next 3 games. What I really want to see from him is really putting his game off the bounce together. When he gets someone like Gobert switched on to him he needs to put him in a blender. It's in him. That game against OKC last year where he was busting up Cason Wallace and J Will on a few switches is what he ultimately needs to grow into.
I believe he is shooting 40% on pull up 3s. Not sure about his stats running off screens but then again the team doesn't do that much. It's pretty much all spot up or off the dribble. Point being he has been pretty damn good on non spot ups as well
I think that is incorrect. If one of the stat hounds could look it up it would be appreciated. If I’m wrong I’ll admit and, maybe, change my opinion.
That stat is from NBA.com. Granted, most of pullup threes were before Christmas as he's been off ball a lot more lately.
From AI: Reed Sheppard is an exceptionally efficient three-point shooter off the dribble, with early NBA data from the 2025-26 season showing him shooting around 52-56% on pull-up threes, including an impressive stretch where he was 8-of-12 (66.7%) against tight defense, highlighting his improved handling and ability to create space for himself. His Shooting chart: https://3stepsbasket.com/player/isaiah-reed-sheppard/shooting?season=nba26 DD
I got it from NBA.com. He doesn't shoot them at a high volume (1.8 attempts) but regardless 40% isn't bad especially this early in a career. I actually would like them to run him off screens more for movement catch and shoots. Right now it's all spot up or off the dribble. Feels like there is a lot of meat on the bone as far as his shot diet goes https://www.nba.com/stats/players/pullup?PlayerExperience=Sophomore&College=Kentucky
I used to think by my eye test that he's better at pull up than spot up. But someone showed me the stats that said otherwise -- but not by a lot. So I don't think there's a huge gap between his pull up shot and his C&S shots.
Amen is the only one that makes it a prerogative to get him the ball. Sengun has been more selfish with everyone this year. Last couple of games, he has been trying to facilitate more and force less. Durant’s gets his assists, but often ignores Reed although he purports to be one of his greatest supporters. Hopefully, we see more of last night’s Durant going forward. It really is on Ime to get Reed and Durant integrated better into the offense.
I think the problem in Houston is we have largely been locked into the "scorers create for themself and others" paradigm for the last 20ish years. I would love to see more off ball movement and applying pressure to the defense with running guys like Reed off screens to weaponize them and create dissonance with teams choosing on the fly where the help comes from when Reed is actively moving while Amen is driving. This is what made GS dangerous is the defense had to figure out where the help would come to cover Curry in on ball actions while guys like Klay were moving off ball and the defenses were trying to figure out how to help there too. It creates opportunities in the offense that we don't have today.
It’s absolutely what most of us “Ime haters” have been advocating since last year. Clever of you to avoid the “hater” label by not mentioning Ime. There is absolutely no reason why the Rockets haven’t tried more actions to free Reed up, other than either Ime being stubborn, Durant not cooperating, or lack of practice time.
I think it's true that a different coach could muster a better offensive system but I also think the strategy of drafting BPA for years has left Ime with a mish mash of players and the front office has yet to carve out a vision of this team meant to optimize a specific player. They have definitely picked up some useful role players but again it's generalized - do we really want both Stevo AND Capela on an aggresive run and run team with Tari and Amen, DFS? Can Houston really live with heavy minutes from TWO non shooters if Amen and Sengun are to be paired? Ive said it in other threads but we really need to determine if we are building a roster around maximizing what Reed does, what Amen does, what Sengun does, or hell - even what Ime does....because the perfect complementary roster for each of those players looks different than today's roster does. Ime IS without a doubt a good coach. What you are seeing is a symptom of a bunch of 'best player available' and 'best coach available' decisions - the question is what type of team are we building because if you think it's Reed, then Ime might not be the right fit. If it's Amen - maybe Ime is the perfect coach to get the most out of Amen's gifts. The point is we have valuable players and coaches but at some point we need a collection of teammates and coaches who amplify what the others do best to make this team hit above it's weight. Right now we are just a very talented pickup team of the best young players/coaches available at the moment. The real challenge for our front office is going to be how we turn that into a cohesive team.....everything else is just a symptom of not making that very hard choice where we might have to say goodbye to real All Star talent to get better fit for a system we are committing to. Some orgs get that foundational piece and the path is clear - for Houston, we are torn between a few different visions of it.
No. We have plenty of everything. Rebounders (Sengun, Jabari, Amen, Capella), Shooters (Durant, Reed, Tari, Jabari, DFS (soon), Holiday. Initiators (Reed, Amen, Sengun), Coaches (?).
I think you need to read what I said there more closely. This isn't about being a jack of all trades and a master of none - it's about having our own 'death lineup' and right now we have a bunch of lineups that we can exploit teams with but that can also be exploited uniquely and our ability to win matchups against the very best teams depends on whether they have a counter - the bad teams often don't have a counter but the very best teams can hang with any of our generalist lineups. You also gotta revisit those lists of yours - your shooters Jabari and Reed shoot FTs worse than known bad shooter Amen, Jabari has one of the worst TS rates on the team and hits 3s at the lowest 3pt% of players who actually regularly shoot 3s(translation - you may see a 3pt shooter, but opposing defenses prefer him take the 3). Sengun has 3pts and 1 assist more than Amen despite the highest usage on the team and nearly a 1/3 more usage than Amen. We gotta get real about what this team IS, not what it should/could be. I think you can make a case that Amen and Reed are the diamonds on this team and Sengun and Jabari and one our 'bigs' could be exchanged for better fits.
Report from the Sixers and Pistons games: I don’t want to bore you guys repeating all the details I put in previous reports. It’s a lot of the same stuff. I’ll just do an overview. Defensively, it’s been maybe 3 weeks since I’ve seen Reed at his top gear. He’s still half a step slow. He’s rarely stepping forward to crowd the ball handler and take away options, as he did at his best. The three good things he’s held onto are (1) playing more physically than he used to, especially on box-outs (though with some lapses), (2) fewer dumb swipes and shooting fouls (I’m getting the impression this is high on the list of behaviors that piss off Ime, so cleaning it up is crucial to keeping Reed on the court), and (3) doing slightly better at taking hits from drivers and marginally slowing them down. It can look ugly, like he’s just getting bullied, but sometimes the marginal effect of slowing them a little, as opposed to getting blown by, seems to give a help defender time to come over and block the shot. Would be interested to hear if any of you are seeing the same thing, or if you think it’s just totally useless. Starting around 4:30 of the 4th in the Pistons game, Reed had a couple of possessions where he had to help cover a screen, and both times he positioned himself poorly and let the ball handler split the double team. I think overall in the short term he has defensively regressed. Offensively, my impression is totally different. On that side of the ball, it looks to me like he’s making a lot of progress. His pattern seems to be (1) being timid and not trying something, (2) trying it and looking somewhat inept, (3) getting better at it but not quite finishing with a bucket, and then (4) getting more consistent at finishing with the bucket. In the last maybe 3 or 4 games I’ve seen this with long 3’s (he takes one without hesitation and it’s off, then he takes another and swishes it and gets rolling) but especially drives. He misses a few pull-ups or driving layups/floaters, and his box score looks bad for the half or the game. But if he keeps at it in the next half or the next game, those shots start to fall. So although I’m disappointed in his defensive effort (and when he’s not at his top gear, IMO he’s a defensive liability), I’m glad he’s getting more PT in crunch time, and I’m happy the team is running more plays for him to get shots or drives. For the next stretch of the regular season, I’d like to see more emphasis on this, and then an evaluation to see how much he’s managed to elevate his scoring/assist efficiency in that time.
I’ve seen things from Reed Over the last couple months that lead me to believe he will be a star level player. After about another year and a half of physical training, I really think he’s gonna take off.
