Big Blue Nation’s dream of Reed Sheppard staying one more year and playing for his father’s old college roommate is officially dead. Sheppard announced on Thursday that he’s heading for the NBA.
While Jeff Sheppard won two national titles at Kentucky, he only played 18 games in the NBA, so Reed will get to live that part of the basketball dream.
The 2024 NBA Draft is not a loaded one, so it’s the perfect chance for Sheppard to be drafted inside the top 10. While the most money comes from being selected as highly as possible, the success of Sheppard’s career could be determined by his landing spot.
For many draft prospects, the right fit is everything and Sheppard’s skillset would fit perfectly with these three teams who will be drafting in the lottery this summer.
Victor Wembanyama is even more than just a generational talent because we’ve truly never seen another player in the NBA like the French superstar. As a rookie, it took him about half the season to get comfortable before he started to dominate before he began to torch the rest of the league.
The Spurs need to quickly assemble a contender around Wemby because they simply cannot afford to waste another year of his healthy prime. Who knows how long that body can hold up?
This year, San Antonio neglected to even give him a point guard, forcing Jeremy Sochan into the role at the start of the year. Sheppard is young, but he plays like a veteran, he’ll know how to get Wemby the play in the right spots and how to play off of him as a shooter. The Spurs need a point guard who can nurture the league’s next dominant force and that should be Sheppard.
The Toronto Raptors have prioritized length and athleticism for such a long time, so on the surface, it would seem like Masai Ujiri is straying from his philosophy to select a 6-foot-3 point guard in the early lottery. However, Sheppard may be the piece to take Scottie Barnes over the top as an elite player in the NBA.
The Raptors averaged the most transition possessions per game at 23.1 last season and Sheppard could supercharge that attack in two ways. He averaged 2.5 steals at Kentucky and is elite as a free safety on defense, constantly jumping passing lanes to kickstart fast breaks.
He’ll give Toronto even more opportunities to get out in transition, and he’ll make those possessions more efficient. Sheppard is a quality decision-maker, even as a young player, who will find the open man and keep the ball moving, but eventually, somebody needs to knock down an open shot and Toronto doesn’t have enough of those players.
The Raptors finished 2023-24 22nd in three-point attempts per game and 27th in three-point percentage. Sheppard not only solves Toronto’s biggest problems, but he also enhances its biggest strengths.
The Charlotte Hornets already have a point guard in LaMelo Ball, but he only played 22 games last season and hasn’t been reliably healthy for much of his career. Even if he does play close to 82 games next year, the beauty of Sheppard’s game is that he can play on or off the ball, a perfect complement to LaMelo.
Really, the Hornets’ future is riding on Brandon Miller, not LaMelo, and with Sheppard’s shooting and elite off-ball defense, he’d be a great No. 2 to Miller, if and when Charlotte moves on from LaMelo to shift the focus of the franchise.
Sheppard was a 52% three-point shooter who flashed high-level athleticism and averaged over four assists a game as a freshman. Any team is going to benefit from that, but Charlotte’s roster is in such a state of flux that he’d become a foundational piece.