Rockets Reportedly Don't View Reed Sheppard as a Point Guard

Reed Sheppard's stock has been trending upwards this season.

He's a good player, able to provide major contributions for the Rockets. Especially when perusing the team's roster.

No other guard is capable of doing what Sheppard can do. Not to say he's Steve Nash or Mark Price, although he has been compared to both star point guards of yesteryear, but he is capable of being a high-functioning table-setter, which the Rockets have lacked.

Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone has even drawn scrutiny for his inability to identify a season-long replacement for Fred VanVleet, who has been out of commission since early September.

As it turns out, the Rockets don't view Sheppard as a point guard. Instead, they view him as a scoring guard, who possesses some playmaking chops.

USA Today's Ben DuBose, who is the Rockets' beat writer at Rockets Wire, explained.

"I've heard that the Rockets internally sort of view him as a two, as well. He can handle the ball, so it's not as if there's no point guard skills there. But at the same time, he's not a drop-in Fred VanVleet replacement."

DuBose made a good observation, noting that even though Sheppard started in Houston's loss to the Miami Heat, in place of Jabari Smith Jr., he still didn't take on the point guard role. Amen Thompson operated as Houston's lead guard, much like we've seen for the entirety of the season.

"It's worth noting that even though he started with Amen today, it felt like Amen was still the closest thing to a point guard. They were using Reed as an off-ball guy, a relocation shooter. I think we should keep that in the back of our mind."

DuBose also made the point that the Rockets would be more likely to start Sheppard over Tari Eason than Amen Thompson, if they were to insert Sheppard into their starting lineup.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka said as much. Well, technically he stated that Sheppard would never start over Thompson.

The report shouldn't come as a surprise. Udoka has been using Sheppard as a scoring guard, leveraging screens to set him up for good looks from deep.

His playmaking ability is really viewed as more of a bonus. Udoka's penchant is for defense, and there's a significant drop off in the defensive ability between Thompson and Sheppard. For this reason, it's not surprising that Houston's brass sees Sheppard as more of a shooting guard and less of a point guard.