Faith Becomes Sight: Reed Sheppard breaks out for the Houston Rockets

There wasn’t a lot to be excited about heading into the Rockets Monday night matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder. They were shorthanded (understatement) with six fixtures in the rotation missing this game for injuries and injury management. All signs pointed to the Rockets punting against the top team in the West with hopes to play a slightly healthier game against the Indiana Pacers the next night. Faith Becomes Sight: Reed Sheppard breaks out for the Houston Rockets.

The story of Reed Sheppard has been further fuel for the “Summer League doesn’t matter” truthers. He was immediately too good in a room full of his draft peers and looked primed to fill in nicely for a Rockets team in desperate need of a dynamic facilitator and shooting. Same can be said for his preseason contributions. Then, the season started and he came crashing back down to earth.

The lights were fading on what Reed can be for this team. It looked more and more likely that he would be included in an offseason consolidation trade as the DNPs and 5 minute showings started to mount. Doubt in the Kentucky product’s place among the young core of the Houston Rockets had reached an all time high. Though, some say there’s no faith without the possibility of doubt, and many fans have been holding onto their faith in the 3rd overall pick of the 2024 draft.

Faith became sight for the Reed Sheppard believers as he erupted for his best performance of his young career with 25 pts, 5 ast, and 3 stocks on 69.9% TS. He did a little bit of everything as he showed his range off his range, high IQ playmaking, and sneaky quick hands on the defensive end.

The circumstances make it even more impressive. Not only did he reach these heights against one of the best defenses by point differential we’ve ever seen, he did it against some of their best individual defenders in Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, and Alex Caruso. No one would have blamed him for continuing his struggles, but he decided to put the league on notice instead. We hope that this is just the beginning of a new look Reed who can answer a couple of the Rockets biggest needs this season and eventually supplant VanVleet as the show-runner in the backcourt.

What’s next for Reed? I’m sure that’s what most fans and media are wondering as they head into the second night of a back to back with a team who just can’t seem to get healthy. Fred VanVleet will continue to miss time with another ankle injury which should make way for plenty of Reed minutes in the near future as long as Coach Udoka is willing. That is really is the question behind the question though, isn’t it?

The tough-minded coach has shown relative impatience with Reed’s shortcomings and has most often opted to throw Aaron Holiday out there to at least provide solid guard defense and shooting. Sheppard has had an extremely short leash to be able to work through his mistakes and find some confidence. That in mind, Udoka deserves some credit for giving Reed the start in this game that he’ll never forget. Was it enough for Sheppard to earn more and more playing time and a much longer leash throughout the rest of this season? Rockets fans everywhere should hope so.

The math changes dramatically for the Rockets if Reed Sheppard is able to build off this performance in the weeks to come. If this team is serious about maximizing both this season and future seasons then they will embrace this breakout performance as a sign of what’s to come and make way for many more like it. I’m confident they won’t regret. Faith Becomes Sight: Reed Sheppard breaks out for the Houston Rockets

While we wait to see what’s next in the saga, go take a Reed Sheppard victory lap and quit wishing for Stephon Castle and Kel’el Ware.

P.S. Shoutout Cam Whitmore too. He hooped. Keep it up.