Reed Sheppard's Defense

I keep seeing stuff from fans, media and coaches about Reed's defensive abilities or lack thereof.

He gets picked on, beat too easily, and has lapses...

Lets just say all that is true.

Is this happening to Reed more than other players?

I get the eye test, but I think people see Reed get beat and it really sticks but because other guys dont have the bad defense label we'll see them get beat and it doesnt stick in our minds.

Like on @Clutch pod after the game they talked about a couple times Reed "looked like a kid" when a larger player had him under the rim and just bodies him and went up for an easy 2.

Its like those 2 points were worth more than the two points Sengun or whoever gives up when Embiid just goes right through them for an easy layup.

Look at embiid and maxey's highlights from this past game:



Imagine if Embiid was punishing reed at the rim and just going up over him like he did some of those guys. Imagine maxey just running right past Reed like he did. Imagine Reed giving up easy transition buckets with turnovers. Itd be a huge mark against him and his ass would be on the bench.

Does it just look better because they're doing it to bigger players? How many of those points were because Reed got beat, or lost, or picked on? Look what they're doing to those other guys.

Again, I get the eye test stuff, but at what point do numbers matter?

Reed is:
5th in dws
2nd in dbpm
5th in drtg

Ok fine, individual defensive metrics dont matter as much.

Well the Rockets as a team are slightly better defensively with Reed on the court vs off.

But most importantly, (out of guys who been in the rotation all year) he's 5th in differential meaning we generally win the minutes he's in the game. So how detrimental is his defense really?

Compare that to Okogie who actually has a negative differential on the season. Matter of fact theres only two guy who have played regularly that are negative. Okogie and Clint.

I get it. We all want hin to defend better. But in the meantime we've just gotta deal with some of that because overall we are better with him on the floor vs off no matter how bad some of the defensive stuff looks. Gotta get past the optics.