Where is my Thomas Hamilton appreciation thread? https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hamilth01.html
Knee jerk? No, it's not. I'm confident we'll be revisiting this question for years to come. That said, is our future "blown"? No. Reed could be a full bust and the future is still bright. The question is would the Rocket's be better off if they drafted Edey rather than Reed. As of right now, you are being generous if you call it a wash. As of right now, Edey is clearly more NBA ready than Reed. But our best player is Alpy plus Adams and Landale have both played well. Also surprisingly, Jabari has excelled at small-ball 5. So we are set at 5. In short, Edey wouldn't have gotten any PT here. The Rockets NEED Reed to step up. They need a FVV replacement and they need more reliable outside shooting. But the good news is you can develop Reed over time. If Reed doesn't develop, you make some trades. Unfortunately, our best trade assets are Adams, Landale, and Jabari.
LOL, based on Edey being thrown into the starter spot and Reed not getting time, not based on skill level. If Sheppard got the playing time of Edey, he'd be the hands down pick for ROY right now.
Edey is looking better, but that's to be expected. He is ~3 years older and has 3 more years' worth of college experience. He also has a much, much easier job as a big center who largely plays drop coverage and stands in the dunker spot or sets picks for ball-dominant scorers most of the time. The other thing is, we already have three playable centers on the roster, two of them starting-caliber. Hard to see Edey finding any minutes. In theory, there should be some minutes for Reed, he's just sucked too much to really be playable. You don't draft for fit, generally speaking, but I haven't seen anything yet that makes me wish we had drafted Edey. Dalton Knecht or Bub Carrington, sure, might have been nice fits right now who could contribute off the bench. No chance we were picking those guys though from the sound of things; the only other player we heard a lot of buzz about the Rockets maybe picking was Donovan Clingan, which was probably a smokescreen. In any case, we'll have to wait and see long-term, it's still early days for all these players.
It's always possible that wouldn't be he case, but if he was getting 20+ minutes per game, he'd have worked past the cold shooting and nerves.... and it's not like any rookie is actually looking good. A contributor to the #2 seed in the West would dominate the rookie ladder...hell if he comes back up relatively soon and plays decently, he'll probably still win ROY due to how bad everyone else in this class is.