On the other hand, I believe Jabari is much easier to fit onto a roster because he actually plays defense
Yeah, but if you saw Auburn Jabari, you would be disappointed with his NBA defense knowing he should be much better. You still have a valid point.
Yes and Fredette could do all that as well. I'm saying it's just summer league. I've already seen the issue on defense. Teammates scrambling to hide Reed from getting caught defending bigger players inside. These summer league teams have not been able to exploit it and milk it......NBA teams will. It wasn't Jimmer's problem on offense......it was his defense that was an issue. Many people here didn't get to see how good Jimmer was. When you send defenders to help Sengun defensively it's hard to help and hide another, defensively.
Oh I agree, that's just what I'd wish to see. If I had to just keep 4 guys, It would get really tough. Right now, Id lean in this order. #1 - Sengun #2 - Sheppard #3 - Thompson #4 - Whitmore #5 - Eason #6 - Smith #7 - Green (Obviously I left him off the final roster anyway but just thought I'd put him on the list to be fair.)
Thompson whipping passes to Reed who's letting it fly as soon as it hits his hands is going to be so damn fun to watch!
Besides the shooting Shepard has significantly better basketball IQ I doubt he forgets what the shot clock is at the of game and not to pass the ball to the guy other team this isn’t a undrafted player He’s the #3 pick playing like the #3 pick
Only thing I'd change is he's the #3 playing like the #1 pick. Other than that, 100% agree. Love this guy already.
This is one of the more impressive summer league debuts for the rockets He doesn’t look like he is uncomfortable at all Very impressive
There are two things that really impress me: 1. He really looks like a natural PG, not a tweener to me. He can get to the paint without a problem (he also could do that in college) and he has the vision, passing ability and bball iq to pass it to the right player. His handle is also easily good enough to bring it up the court - it is not a strength, but also not a weakness. 2. He doesn‘t look overwhelmed at all and usually does the right decision. He had a really bad pass early on and that logo transition 3 was stupid as well, but outside of that, he played within the game, even with lots of chaos around him. I want Amen to succeed at PG, but I think I would be a lot more comfortable with Reed right now as the backup for FVV. In the future I can see us playing PG by committee - and not because we don‘t have any real PG, but because we will have too many playmakers and that‘s a good problem to have. We will have several tough decisions when it comes to playing time next season…
Yeah, summer league is more about evaluating new talent or getting players who are already on the roster to work on certain aspects of their game. I don't think teams are interested in exploiting the opponent's weaknesses to get the win because that's not the priority. Still, in the Wizards game, there were a few times that larger perimeter players went straight at Sheppard and used their size advantage. You'd expect this to happen quite a lot when the games begin to count. It's also going to be interesting to see how well Sheppard can defensively keep up with smaller, speedier guards at the NBA level, as well.
Green's not gonna be on this roster come next season or maybe even gone by the trade deadline unless he balls out right from the get go and continues throughout the season. I doubt it though, dude is in Europe attending fashion shows rather than working on his game or bulking up. He gonna realize soon when that money runs dry, he gonna lose his expensive hobbies too.
This gonna be the reverse Banchero. Hawks ALMOST did it...then drafted the guy that's more of a project instead. We got away with this one...I know its summer league but this one feels different.
Reed+Amen+Alperen gives you super diverse offensive creation potential. I don't think you need anything else... Just shooters, defenders, and the right scheme.
He looks so under control. There is basically no scheme to summer league basketball, it's just roll it out and make it up as you go. Once he gets into an actual structure with screens and movement it's hard to not be excited. I think his most valuable tool will be shooting off screens and we basically haven't utilized that. His shooting hasn't been weaponized in a team concept at all, it's pretty much just been one on one or off a single picker. His hands and anticipation defensively are insane. Only real issue I've seen is that he needs to get his handles tighter and lower.
Literally just this and putting a bit more force in his longer passes (some of which looked soft and close to being a turnover/interception) are the only tweaks I've seen in the 2 games so far. He looks better than his college tape that I watched, and better than advertised by scouts. Big win for Houston here.
James Harden was a life changing asset for this franchise. Reed Sheppard looks like the next Steve Nash.
