Is Rafael Stone expecting too much from Reed Sheppard?

The next Steph Curry. The next Steve Nash.

The next Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf…the next Brent Price.

The first Reed Sheppard – existentially speaking. He is not a Kevin O’Connor comparison – He is a solitary unit.

Advertisement

But what is he?

It seems like Rafael Stone has some lofty expectations. Rumors suggest that he sees Sheppard as a Nash-level talent. Stone publicly stated that this year, Sheppard made the Rockets’ offense better “whenever he was on the floor”.

Did he, though?

Rockets’ Reed Sheppard needs to grow

CleaningTheGlass says otherwise. The Rockets were -0.1 points per 100 possessions (PPP) worse when Sheppard was on the floor.

That’s nothing to worry about. Sheppard was a sophomore, and he got precious few reps as a rookie. Still, there’s no reason for me (and every reason for Rafael Stone) to exaggerate.

Advertisement

As a pick-and-roll ball-handler, Sheppard was fine, generating 0.90 PPP in those sets (62.1st percentile).

(Side note: Writing about this team is getting depressing. It feels like whenever I find a playtype stat, the Rocket in question is in the 60-something-ith percentile. Victor Wembanyama is probably in the 90th percentile in most defensive metrics before he gets out of bed. Le sigh).

Anyway, that’s a competent mark for a sophomore. For context, Tyrese Haliburton was in just the 51.4th percentile in pick-and-roll PPP as a sophomore.

That felt good to type. Of course, Tyrese Maxey was in the 85.1st. Oh God, the demons in my head! Sorry. Realistically, player development is too varied to expect much linearity. The lesson here is that Sheppard still has a lot of developmental paths he can take.

Advertisement

That makes assuming the best just about as irrational as assuming the worst. If we were to assume the median (which is either more rational or equally irrational, it’s a hard call), Sheppard is likely Abdul-Rauf-ish, or Payton Pritchard, or someone in that general tier. That’s fine, but the cornerstone Stone seems to see.

How does Sheppard hit that level?

Sheppard must be an all-time shooter

As a rookie, Sheppard hit 33.8% of his 2.7 triples per night. As a sophomore, he…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/rafael-stone-expecting-too-much-093200247.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-05-21 09:32:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.