Three 2024 NBA Draft Picks Who Need Bounce-Back Second Seasons

The 2024 NBA Draft was just over a year ago, and the class is prepping for an exciting second season.

It wasn’t a highly-regarded class, but was still able to infuse the NBA with some new talent, such as Stephon Castle, Zaccharie Risacher, Jaylen Wells and plenty more.

Some draftees were thought of highly on draft night, but didn’t quite see the debut season they wanted. Below, we’ll evaluate three prospects who are in need of a bounce-back sophomore season:

Reed Sheppard, Rockets

Reed Sheppard easily tops this list, having been drafted No. 3 overall by the Houston Rockets, but playing in an extremely limited capacity as a rookie.

Across just 52 games, he scored just 4.4 points on 35%, playing less than 13 minutes per game. He struggled to find comfortability on both ends — largely due to Houston’s surge in the West — but did see a successful G League stint.

Houston is reportedly prioritizing Sheppard and offering him more opportunity moving forward, and the team will certainly need more shooting and play-making in the rotation. Now, it’s up to Sheppard to come around and offer those things as a second-year.

reed sheppard walked into the nba with some of the league’s best hands. ranked 4th in deflections/100 (7.0), his reaction time and accuracy is rare

i have real defensive concerns with reed but his hands are a superpower he can let on pic.twitter.com/UmzLEvY45x
— ben pfeifer (@bjpf_) July 24, 2025

Rob Dillingham, Timberwolves

The Minnesota Timberwolves have now seen back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances, proving they’re one of the best teams in the conference, though not quite good enough to win it.

With its best players on huge deals, the Timberwolves desperately need some internal development from their youngsters to take another leap, and guard Rob Dillingham is likely who they’re holding out for.

The team gave up future draft capital to trade and nab him at No. 8 last year, though he wasn’t quite ready for extensive time. Across 49 games he added just 4.5 points on 44% shooting, doing so in 10.5 minutes per game.

With Mike Conley aging and no other true play-makers — save for superstar Anthony Edwards — Minnesota desperately needs a talent infusion in their backcourt. And Dillingham, with white-hot scoring and table-setting passing, could add just that.

It's rob dillingham friday pic.twitter.com/4p6hGaVFy0
— married to the guacamole (@drip_aristocrat) August 22, 2025

Cody Williams, Jazz

Cody Williams rounded out the top-10 in the 2024 draft, being selected by the freshly rebuilding Utah Jazz. Despite a plethora of minutes available, he was unable to really capitalize as a rookie.

Williams played 21.2 minutes across 50 games as an NBA newbie, but mustered just 4.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and measly 32-26-72 splits. He looked outmatched most of the time, failing to really make an impact on offense or defense.

Cody Williams stats after 5 total Las Vegas NBA Summer League games:

- 20.4 PPG
- 4.4 RPG
- 2.8 APG
- 2.2 SPG
- 46.3% from field
- 34.2% from three

They wrote him off but he didn’t write back tho pic.twitter.com/NNx67mg7eT
— Art Cummings (@ArtTakesNote) July 19, 2025

Williams looked extremely promising at Las Vegas Summer League months ago, offering 20.4 points on 46% shooting across five games, adding plenty of passing and defense too.

Now, the Jazz will be hoping that Williams can parlay his Summer success to the 2025-26 season.