I have had the exact same thought. His 52% college shooting could very well be a fluke. Just happened at the perfect time. Lucky him. Seriously. Besides his lone college season, is there any evidence that he is at least an average shooter, let alone a generational shooter?
You are the snowflake here why are you saying give ROY to Carter? Thats obv an overreaction due to you being defensive and sensitive.
According to @Bobbythegreat he has almost perfect shooting mechanics and thats all the evidence you need. Otherwise you don't know ball like why are you even questioning this?
The thing that gets me is the Rockets staff under Stone have been pretty solid with their picks. It amazes me that they fumbled this pick so badly. Maybe owner pressure? Who knows!
That’s because I’m 99% sure coachbadlee was making calls about Carter being ROY (albeit he was trolling). If friendly banter offends you then you might need to go outside and touch some grass.
Just chose fit over potential. We needed a 3 pt shooter/FVV successor and Sheppard seemed like the best candidate. Hopefully this is the last time we do this.
stone squandered the 3rd pick on a kid whose mother has to remind him everyday not to be soft. did this idiot even watch sheppard’s ncaa tournament performance smh. kid’s got choke flowing thru his veins
94% of the board wanted us to draft him lol. People are way too hard on a rookie, because he's small and not uber athletic as in blazing speed or dunk contest hops it's going to take a bit of time for him to find confidence and find out what he can get away with in this league but he's already had solid games in the NBA, dominates the gleague when he plays there, he's not some talentless hack. Give him a season or two he'll be fine. This was the same with Jabari, not uber athletic but had skills and just has to learn what he can get away with at this level and has learned the more we see him. Players that are more skill reliant and not athletic freaks can take a bit of time. Look at Dirk, Nash, Brunson, I mean the list goes on. Guys that are more skill reliant and have no 'freakness' to their game just have to figure out how to attack NBA defenders and get a go to move. The shot will fall when his confidence comes, no doubt about that, it's really more about everything else and finding himself in the league. Most guys that start slow in the NBA are either too skill reliant like Nash or too athletic reliant like Giannis, but the latter types can usually get away with a lot more. Like Amen didn't look as bad as a rookie because he was at least flying all over the place. The guys in the middle, like Durant or Wemby, obviously just come in dominant because they are both athletic freaks and have skills. If Reed was 6'5 he would have been #1 pick.
Jabari is 6'10 Sheppard is 6'1.75. Thats why people have more confidence with Jabari. People have high expectation with him cuz everybody was calling him a generational shooter. Even I believed he would be a decent shooter if nothing else. I think its fine for people to be disappointed on him cuz at the end of the day he is the 3rd pick and making 10M a year. Getting criticized for bad play is part of his job thats part of why he is making millions. Lumping him with Jabari tbh is kinda an insult to Jabari cuz Jabari never shot 27% from 3 with 41% TS. If Jabari had those nos and was 6'1.75 pretty sure he'd also hear it from everyone.
I agree with the Jabari comparisons. They both have that passive 'nice kid' attitude that prevents them from having the killer instinct to just go out and make things happen on the court. But, they'll both generally go out and play hard. As you mention, the big difference is Jabari is 6'10. He can be valuable by just going out there and being a 6'10 guy that plays hard even when the shot isn't falling. There are completely talentless 6'10 guys in the nba. The bar is lower because size has an impact by itself. Unfortunately for Reed, he's gotta be really good at something to keep getting playing time at 6'2. He's gotta find that shooting touch soon, sooner than Jabari had to.
But why would we ignore the most legitimate data in the set and make our decision based on all the other weaker data?
Reed has had a very very slow start to his NBA career, but I think he has the work ethic and intelligence to turn things around. I know the Nash rookie year comparison is overplayed, and Nash is an all-time great so it's probably not a fair career arc to compare to reed anyhow. But players like Jeff Teague, Goran Dragic, Kyle Lowry and our very own FVV started slow too and all became very good NBA players. Dennis Smith started fast and ended up being a bust. There's really no guarantee of anything, except for those "sure thing" players that you know right away will be amazing. Reed clearly won't be one of those, but who's to say what's gonna happen in the next few years! I'll believe in him.
The point then wasn't really about size just about how Jabari lack of athleticism also makes him look like, or made him look like for the first 2 seasons of his career, that maybe he was going to struggle with the league. Because suddenly he's going up against guys bigger, stronger, and faster than him, and he was far from some elite athlete. In fact his athleticism was a knock on him coming in. The thing with Jabari was he was also some generational shooter, he was 'taller klay thompson' but when you are failing in other areas of your game then its going to affect your confidence and its going to affect your shot. With Reed, as Roomba mentions above, it will be more about being crafty. Baiting fouls so he can get to the line will have to be a big part of his game. Just improving on his dribbling and shooting will be enough to raise him up to a starting PG but that is going to take some time. I think people are being too harsh on him, what matters is, is he improving? He just had a game last week where he came in and he played well, he followed it up with a bad game for sure but that's rookies for you. If he's going to be humble and work on his game day to day then I am sure he's going to get better and find his shot, that's the last thing I worry about with him. I don't even mind him being passive because if he does develop into the long term PG we want him to be, he's going to have to be passive with the guys we have on this team. I'd rather have a pure PG that is out trying to average 10+ assists per night and just hit the shots that he feels he needs to take then some guy taking shots away from our better scorers. I don't think passivity is inherently bad in a player, just depends on the role. We really don't need another guy hunting shots on this team any ways, just hit the open ones, run the offense, and make the right pass. That's all I hope for with Reed. But @Roomba is right about that other thing too. Some guys start slow, some guys start fast. Dennis Smith, Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings came into the league looking like Allen Iverson for a minute there lol. So I'm always on a wait and see mode with high prospects and think they should be given way more of a leash. I do think he plays with more confidence now than he did before but I'll never forget that Jalen Green said when he started his career he wondered for a minute if he was even good enough to play in the NBA. That confidence hurdle is a big one for rookies.
I get what you are saying but at the same time if your expectations are that low we shoulld just ship out Sheppard right now and sign Tyus Jones and trade for TJ Mconnell in the offseason. I expect more from him cuz we are invested getting him and continue to invest in his own training and development. 6'1 pgs are the most common NBA player you got so many guys who can play making 5M and below. You can get a guy who is older, already has developed skills and you don't need to wait for Sheppard to develop if he is only gonna max out at that level. If the dude is gonna top out as a bench guy or fringe starter why we even keep him? That's not worth waiting multiple seasons and paying him 10M a year. Ironic I have a better projection of Reed Sheppard than people who support him.
I’ve been saying for a while he’s looking like Lin and Luther Head in the playoffs, and he did it again today. He’s problem is his timidness, he doesn’t have irrational confidence. It’s not a skill issue, it’s all in his head. His entire demeanour when he played in SL/G-League is completely different to when the lights are brighter. Like Luther Head, Jeremy Lin, Huerter, Ben Simmons and all the other choke artists. Same reason why Dwight is 85% from the line in practice and 50% in games. Maybe he can get over it eventually, but this is far more serious than a skill issue. I cannot remember a player who overcame their timidness to go on and become a star. Rookie Yao’s first couple of weeks is the closest I can think of, and he got over it quick. Not selling my Reed stocks yet but it’s starting to look like we might have wasted our top 3 pick. Skills are one thing, but being a mental midget is not so easily fixed.
