As a crowded backcourt threatens his minutes, the bulked-up sharpshooter must trade finesse for physicality to anchor Houston’s rotation and emerge as a Sixth Man contender.
Coming into the 2026-2027 NBA season, the Houston Rockets’ most recent lottery draft pick is heading into his third year. Everyone’s hoping to see a leap similar to the ones both Alperen Şengün and Amen Thompson made, but is that realistic?
Reed Sheppard already made major improvements from his rookie season to sophomore season last year, which was mostly due to him getting more than twice as many minutes, per Basketball-Reference.
His stats went up in literally every category except for free throw shooting, where he dropped from 81.3-percent to 80.2-percent. Despite tripling his attempts per game, he still only shot 86 free throws in a full 82 game season.
That’s definitely an area where he can improve, and I have faith that he will. In the past, he’s tended to shy away from contact when driving to the lane, which explains his low attempts from the line. Thankfully now it appears he’s been putting on some muscle, according to multiple reports.
If this presumed improvement in the strength category can help him absorb, and even initiate contact more often, I’m sure he can get to the line more too. As a very solid free throw shooter who could still improve, I see this as an easy way to get some easy points on the board.
This can obviously help him on the defensive end as well. After averaging 26.2 minutes per game last season, I think that might be one of the only ways he can guarantee playing time. It’s hard to imagine he’ll get many more with Fred VanVleet, Marcus Smart, and Bruce Thornton coming to town. His minutes could even go down.
If he wants to stay on the court, his efficiency might have to go up too, even though he was arguably the best shooter on the team already. While 39.4-percent is great, it might not be elite enough considering Aaron Holiday shot the same percentage. Bruce Thornton shot just over 40-percent in Summer League.
If he shoots it closer to 45-percent, right there with the most elite snipers, then he’ll definitely demand minutes. He’ll also increase his scoring output, even if he can’t find more minutes in the guard rotation.
If everything went perfectly, I’m questioning if he could be the Most Improved Player. Probably not, considering the winners for the past decade or so have either had close to a 10-point jump in scoring, or became All-Stars. Often both happened in the same year, as seen on Basketball-Reference.
So I’m thinking Sixth Man of the Year is a much more realistic award. Do you think he can follow in the footsteps of a former Rocket and win it exactly 10 years after Eric Gordon?
