Thrust into the largest role of his young NBA career, Reed Sheppard showed that he was not ready for it in the Houston Rockets' season-opening loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
On Tuesday, Sheppard, who has become the sixth man and first true guard off the bench for Houston following Fred VanVleet's ACL injury last month, looked utterly outmatched against the defending NBA champions.
In nearly 27:47 of action, Sehppard had 9 points, 4 assists, 2 turnovers, and went 3-for-11 from the field and 2-for-7 on 3-pointers. And on the defensive end, the 6-foot-2 guard couldn't keep up with the Thunder, who specifically sought him out in their actions.
The performance was roundly criticized by fans and media members alike, and Bill Simmons, once a Sheppard believer, was particularly blunt in his analysis.
“He was awful,” Simmons said on his podcast. “We were thinking that maybe he could be the next Mark Price. He looked like Brent Price today…
“They need him to be, needless to say, way better than he was tonight because they actually need him. They need some sort of point guard, and if it’s not him, they’re going to have to go trade for somebody and make some moves. But he was relentlessly targeted on defense. He just got, I thought, demolished by [Cason] Wallace in a couple of points in this game. He would get heat-checky sometimes, and it was inappropriate. It was both he was playing terrible but also had a lot of confidence, which I didn’t mind, but it just was really rough.”
Before Tuesday's double-overtime loss, the 21-year-old Sheppard, who was drafted third overall last year, had played more than 27 minutes only four times, all of which, not coincidentally, were on the road and either a part of a back-to-back or late in the season right before the playoffs.
Now with VanVleet, who tore his ACL during a workout one month ago today, expected to miss the entire season, Sheppard is one of the only on-ball guards on the Rockets. To illustrate the point, Houston's smallest starter Tuesday was 6-foot-7 Amen Thompson. The only Rocket other than Sheppard shorter than that to see the floor in OKC was 6-foot-4 Josh Okogie.
For each of their next two games, the Rockets will be at home. On Friday, they host the Detroit Pistons before playing the Brooklyn Nets on Monday.
