Agreed, from my perspective the BPA isn't even clear. The front office may think differently though, who knows.
Oakland played a brilliant, well-organized zone for large stretches of the game. Dillingham kept driving into trouble, and Sheppard could not exploit the rotations. That and Sheppard ended up chasing senior Jack Gohlke, who was 10-20 from 3 in a great individual performance. Poor coaching by Calapari as he did not have the Wildcats ready to play.
Calapari has never been a good game coach. Great recruiter and has been good at developing one and dones.
That's my only fear. He is obviously the cluutchfans favorite this year. If we pick him I guess time will tell.
it occurs to me that he might best be utilized in a very organized offensive system. We don't have that...
I wanted them to draft Yao Ming cousin(LOL) Zach Edey then we could have our version of the twin towers once again..
His creation in transition was stellar because he's such a smart player....and he's not going to be a primary ball handler next to Amen and Sengun. First step only really matters to ISO types. If you watched his college game, like Curry, he doesn't require much separation to get his shot off. If a defender goes under a pick, it's a 3. Pretty much any DHO is enough to get his shot off if he wants it. If we were looking at him trying to be James Harden or whatever, sure, he'd struggle, but that's not his game.
I think this is all valid, super minor quibbles aside. For me, the thing that would elevate his ceiling is his "feel" (processing, spatial awareness, body coordination, etc.) and a general high skill level for a young player. I'm not exactly sure *how* Reed could become good/elite at self-creation and other aspects of his game, but I'm also not really sure how a guy like Jalen Brunson does it either (especially if you told me those things when he was drafted...or when he was a freshman in college). Will Reed be Jalen Brunson? Will he be Steph Curry? Will he be Steve Nash? Will he be Air Bud? Probably not. But I'm happy to bet on this type of player more often than not. These guys typically have pretty high ceilings, higher than most people think. Now if Reed was just a shooter or didn't have much else to his game that popped to me, I would definitely agree 100% with everything you've said, especially in regards to his ceiling.
I like him, I do, but I think he’s a specialist. He may end up being an all time shooter but I just don’t think he is the best fit for how we want to play.
Sure...but "how we want to play" seems to be having 3 starters in the bottom 15 in the entire league in FG%....I hope for better than "we want to play" I think someone who specializes in shooting, defense, and transition creation is EXACTLY what the team needs.
Could be if his shot can be fixed, he learns to play defense, and the rest of his game translates. I won't hate it if we go with him... but he's a lot more risky. He's got a pretty high ceiling if everything works out but his floor is him back overseas in a few years.
All good points, except similar points could be said about: SGA, Booker, J.Murray, Maxey, Herro, D.Fox. Booker, for example, was selected 4th from his KY team, for this very reason. For me the case for Sheppard definitely involves the KY guard voodoo magic.
This. And I really don't get why anyone keeps harping on that. There's a lot of guys in he league who have self creation tools, but don't hit shots a a very high rate....Like Jalen. Amen can get any shot he wants, but he can't shoot. Fred ran the PG position at a respectable level last season and he has very very little self creation ability. There's very few guys who you can give the ball to in the half court and say go create offense all on your own, and they are going to do it at a high level capable of winning games. There's only 4 players last year who had 6 or more iso possessions per game and of those 4 Shai and Luka were in the 80th percentile or higher...AKA super elite at it.
I'm only mentioning it because we have multiple posters comping him to guys who were elite creators. Like I said, I like him and I'm good with it if we draft him.
I think @Clutch said something about this in the podcast, but anyway, I don't think the Rockets have enough (or possibly, any) superstar level players to allow them to use the #3 pick on a guy who's most likely to be a high-floor role player type - shooting woes be damned. If it comes down to Sheppard or one of the foreign prospects who you could talk yourself into being an all star one day due to size/athelticism/etc, the Rockets will probably choose the latter (or trade)
