That is what the advanced stats say. Correct. These double and triple teams you speak of....are they in the room with us right now?
His playmaking is so much better than even a couple of months ago. He’s finding (and getting) guys open for shots.
Reed's utilization of the pick and roll is night and day compared compared to preseason and early regular season. He's almost looking like a floor general now. I can pretty much trust he's going to find a decent shot.
Come on, we could have been doing this all year long.....IME sees this at practice and decides not to use it...WTF man. DD
The advanced stats show that he is 12th in BPM and 13th in VORP (with one of the players in front of him a teammate)??
You're considering Sheppard's skillset now. I'm talking about his potential. And I have no doubt in a couple years, Sheppard could average .4 on 10+ 3pa a game. If anything, he's the type who thrives taking more shots. If - and this is a big if - Sheppard develops into our post-Durant leading scorer, I'm guessing he'll take at last 20 shots a night. That's baseline for most young #1 option guards/wings. Let's say, for simplicity sake, he splits those perfectly, and shoots .4 from 3, .48 from 2. That's just about 22 points right there. And that's not factoring in FTs. An average #1 scorer takes at least 6 FTs a game. But let's say he takes only 5 - at 80%, that's 4 more points, totaling 26. And absolutely nothing is crazy about these figures. It cracks me how people act like Sheppard is some tiny guy. He's not. He measured a hair under 6'2 at the combine, meaning he's a legit 6'3 in shoes. He's also nothing exactly a tiny guy - he's pretty muscular. There's a reason he posted the highest vertical at the combine. The dude is stronger than people give him credit. Obviously I have no idea how Reed will develop. But the idea that he can't be a 25+ ppg scorer because of his size unless he becomes Curry just seems absurd to me. There have been a ton of guys his size or smaller who are or were buckets. Off the top of my head: Mitchell, Brunson, Maxey, Dame, Young, Iverson, Irving, Fox. Hell, Sheppard is a giant compared to our very own Calvin Murphy, and Murphy averaged 25 for a season once.
If I told you that we had a combo guard in his sophomore nba season who we drafted early lotto and in 25 min per game he was: shooting 40% from 3 on high volume 2:1 assist to TO ratio averaging 2 stocks, 3 assists and 13 pts off the bench pretty sure most would think that’s good progress. And that includes a mid-season slump. Per 36 that’s 19 pts and 3 stocks. I expect these numbers to improve over the last third of the season. Free Reed!
Yeah, but all of those guys you mentioned exhibited a lot more ability to get to the rim and score there around the same age than Reed has so far. I mean, sure, if you're banking on a larger amount of improvement than normal, that's fine. I'm just pointing out that only 8% of a player's shots coming from 0-3ft is exceptionally low, like near the bottom of the league low. That's why I believe he'll struggle to add that level to his game, and why I believe he'll struggle to be a three level scorer, and I just fundamentally believe you have to have all three levels to score efficiently on very high volumes in the NBA... again, unless you're right there with the greatest 3P shooter of all time.
I agree that availability is underrated. I've said that here many times. Thing is though its easy to rate a bet as a bad one after the results are known. Adams in his career had a couple of significant ones and DFS had 3ish. Is it a bad bet? Maybe? The contract terms should also be considered - DFS only two years guaranteed, Adams signed an extension so we had an option to move on. It seems to me the terms that initially brought both of them to the rockets mitigate a lot of risk. IF Adams was still playing great and DFS was coming along faster you would be saying... what? bad bet still?
I had absolutely no issues with the 3yr/$13 mil Adams got. I was willing to accept the injury risk for that contract. But I would never have signed an injured DFS, doubling down on older injured players. I also didn’t hate the 2-yr Fred contract. But I would not have allowed Fred to be a single point of failure for our team. I was screaming for another backcourt ball handler last offseason. Mainly now I just want them to learn from what has transpired and not go into next yr assuming anything from DFS, Steveo and Fred. In other words, have a plan that doesn’t depend on old guys coming off injury. hopefully Reed will prove to be our starting point guard over this last third of the season and we’ll just be relying on Fred as a backup.
other way around, Reed is more rhythm / volume shooter his % goes closer to his average (which should be 40%+) with more shot attempts. Its not that with most people since most players take set shots/corner 3s etc. If he takes 10+ 3PA he will guaranteed be >40%
I'll never understand the phenomenon of capping a young player who is playing well and improving game to game. It's like every time they improve so many people act like that is the pinnacle. Obviously none of us can tell the future but it's safe to think he isn't a finished product
Heck, FVV took 10 3PA in the 21/22 season and hit 38%. FVV's a good shooter and everything, but Sheppard's capable of being an elite shooter. 40% on that volume is certainly within his wheelhouse.
