Reed Sheppard is the Rockets’ Franchise Player™

Welcome to the bright side !

DD

 

think of how much better we he would have looked if he were given even just a consistent 15mpg last season..

Reed is the closest thing we've seen that resembles Steph since Steph entered the league. And you want to bench that guy? Comon.

 

More Reed u fools.

Yesterday listening to LOR I heard that Pritchard actually demanded a trade playing under Ime. I think we can see the parallels with Reed. The GM needs to take a firm hand on this. Maybe watch Moneyball a few times to get some inspiration. We simply can’t have our #3 pick and best long range shooter riding the pine because Ime doesn’t think his defense is good enough. I thought it was defensible in year 1 when we were the #2 seed and Reed looked terrible. Not in yr 2 when they’ve been blaming all our failures on Fred’s injury and have all but admitted we aren’t contenders. We are now 7-1 when Reed starts. Reed needs to be playing 30 min consistently. It’s infuriating.

 

It is shocking how different it could look with a coach that understands offense.

Reed CHANGES everything for the better on this team - his three point shooting opens everything up.

Yep, he will struggle some on D, but also gets loads of steals and blocks to offset that.

Last night he got a bad turnover leading to a layup, immediately took the ball down the court and hit a 3 as a make up.

3 is greater than 2 every day.

DD

 

I remember when Ime Udoka was hired. I was happy we got him, probably because Boston was successful when he was their head coach.
Later it became abundantly clear that Boston was winning in spite of him.

Got-damn, but this guy with his all-D, no-O, tall-guys-no-PG way of doing things.

I doubt Tilman will have the colhões (I prefer the Portuguese word) to rid us of this "coach". He certainly won't want to eat a couple seasons of salary.

But Stonedoka's vision for this team?

 

I'm a big Reed fan, and I like stats, but I don't think the Rockets win 7 out of 8 games going forward with Reed starting. Just not that big of a sample size. Get up to say 60 games with the Rockets winning 41 and losing 19 with Reed being the top starter in offensive rating, and the win loss record would mean more.

Reed should start. I just don't see the 7-1 as a big reason for it. Not sure it is the best short-term move for defensive and chemistry reasons, but the starters need to learn to work with him. Long term, Reed is likely a starter for the Rockets. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I'd give Reed the best odds of any player being a Rockets starter in 4 years even if the Rockets aren't building around him. I think one of Amen and Sengun gets traded. I think one or both of Tari and JSJ end up on the bench or traded. To me, if Sheppard gets to starter quality, he's starting on the Rockets.

 

What's the combined win-loss record of the teams Reed has started against? I like him, but somebody needs to talk me out of the theory that we win more games with him as a starter mostly because Ime tends to start him against weaker opponents.

[edit: Eh, it looks like this question has probably been beaten to death in the other thread]

 

We have only 25 more games to play before the playoffs. This is the time to build chemistry and settle the rotation in preparation. We need Reed to play at a high level with the starters to win in the playoffs. If his role is still what it is now, I am not very optimistic about our chances of even getting out of the first round.

 

Agreed completely. He needs to be the first guy off the bench, early, every night, and play close to or above 30 minutes. It's time to lock in and Reed needs to be a part of that.

 

You're just not framing it right.

We're 7-1 (0.875%) against weak teams.

We don't have a .875 winning percentage against weak teams. The sample shows we are better at beating weak teams with Reed vs without.

How can the next step not be to see if it works against the average team?

 

An offense with Alpi and Reed moving the ball looking for an open shot or the right pass to each other, KD in his money spot, or Amen in the dunker spot is what we need. Get away from KD and Alpi ISO's. It would be so easy to construct a viable offense out of the personnel we have yet Ime is effing clueless. It is time for Reed to start or Ime has to go after the season!!!

 

I can even abide Reed not starting, but he needs to play 30 min a night regardless. I do think the offense looks miles better when Reed starts, but mostly I care about him getting the minutes for his development. I’ve been saying it all year: we have to find out what we have in Reed this season, especially with Fred out. It would be an epic failure to end the season without giving Reed serious run, giving us more data so we are better able to evaluate what we have. Plus if we want to advance in the playoffs, we need Reed to be ready to play a significant role.

I agree with you, if Reed starts, one of Bari or Tari needs to move to the bench. This talk of moving Amen to the bench is madness imo.

 

I don't think there are any FVV fans .... I know I wanted him replaced / upgraded last season, financially it just wasn't possible and spending the MLE on a dude who Don't F'n Score made it worse because you had no backup plan for the backup plan.

The problem is that no one else on the roster has that point guard mindset of protecting the ball, organizing your team and getting them into the offense in the half court (while not picking up your dribble: Looking at you Reed).
And if we're honest, FVV isn't all that, especially offensively shooting .345 from distance .533 at the rim and .376 in the 3-10ft range, all pretty pedestrian crappy numbers .... it just goes to show how important that skillset is to a team.

I gotta give KD credit for trying to be that guy at 7' tall and 38 years old .... many fans want to blame KD when it's really Ime that's the problem. I'm officially jumping on the Fire Ime Bandwagon.

 

that performance last night certainly earned him a thorough benching

 

The problem is there is one dihard FVV fan, and his vote counts more than all of ours combined and more than everyone else's combined, except maybe Tilman's.

 

I thought 30 games were enough to show a player's current 3-point shooting skill? FVV is 38.8% from 3 in his 30 games (23 regular season and 7 playoffs). FVV was a good 3PT shooter (high volume, average efficiency) before his cold streaks early last season. FVV was a good 3PT shooter after his cold streaks.

In all honesty, FVV is a high volume, average efficiency 3 point shooter, that plays D, and is a PG. There aren't many 3 and D PGs. He's not an efficient scorer, but he's very efficient handling the ball. Granted, he got hurt, and probably injury recovery at his age likely is not promising.

I don't consider myself a FVV fan. I don't remember when the FVV hate got unbearable on this board, and I started defending him (early last season?). I don't know what needs to happen for people to realize he was helping the team much more than his PPG and TS% suggest.

The Rockets (well Ime as I think FO is for Reed) need to embrace that Reed is an important member of this team going forward.

 

He's so frustrating. It's not just the on court play but he's made all our assets look offensively worse than they are so even trades have to happen at a loss now.

Only people who can shoot over the top of the offense have looked good. Everyone else's numbers and asset value deflated.

I'm still willing to accept an excellent lead assistant or adding a strong basketball mind to the front office. I'm genuinely willing to let them try their plan for these playoffs.

What I won't be accepting is the excuse that we're a FVV-centered team. That's not bad luck, it's just a bad idea. Fred should be your 4th or 5th most important player. Everyone knows that.

 

People see the surface numbers and judge Fred too harshly.

That's not to say FVV is as good as the front office and Ime Udoka apparently think he is, but he is a good player who fills a role this team currently lacks.

Which is why it's all the more ridiculous we didn't go get a guy who also fills that role like Alvarado, but nevermind.