Reed Sheppard could very likely be the latest third-overall pick to become the crown jewel of his draft class. Like Michael Jordan, Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum, the Houston Rockets could become the best player from his class in his rise to NBA stardom. Maybe — most likely — he won’t be at the level of those other three. But he still has a lot of potential.
Sheppard had a great freshman season at Kentucky, shooting the lights out, playing solid defense and making plays for teammates often. He watched Zaccharie Risacher go to the Atlanta Hawks and Alex Sarr go to the Washington Wizards before the Rockets scooped him up. Then, he dominated in Summer League, generating even more excitement ahead of his first NBA campaign.
In a poll of 20 NBA executives and scouts conducted by Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo of ESPN, Sheppard was recognized as the best pick of the 2024 NBA Draft and the favorite to win the Rookie of the Year award next season. He received seven votes for each category while no other rookie reached five votes.
“Sheppard is going to help Houston right away, and I think he has a chance to be an All-Star down the road,” one high-ranking Eastern Conference executive said to ESPN. Garnering over a third of the votes shows how much talent evaluators believe in Sheppard.
Reed Sheppard hype grows ahead of rookie season with Rockets
One of the roadblocks to Sheppard being named the Rookie of the Year may be the Rockets' depth chart. Their starting guard spots are spoken for with Fred VanVleet and Jalen Green in place. Even though Sheppard is more important to their future than both of them, he may start his career coming off the bench, where his playing time will be more limited.
As long as Sheppard still gets to be in the rotation from the jump, he'll have enough minutes to prove how good he can be. Givony and Woo wrote that there is an “increasing notion that the Rockets will have to find him the level of playing time necessary to contend for NBA Rookie of the Year.” Houston knows that it has to maximize its investment in Sheppard, which will work both in his favor and the team's as it looks to return to the playoffs.
Winning the Rookie of the Year award in the 2024-25 season is well within reach for Reed Sheppard, as is becoming a cornerstone for the Rockets.
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