Ime Udoka & Rafael Stone Discuss Houston Rockets Drafting Kentucky Guard Reed Sheppard

Ime Udoka & Rafael Stone Discuss Houston Rockets Drafting Kentucky Guard Reed Sheppard

all right it is the Matt Thomas show but there is no Matt Thomas today Ross V real Chris Gordy you just heard the introductory press conference readed Shephard two of the fellas on with him head coach Oka and general manager RF elstone with us now on the Matt Thomas Show guys uh well let’s go and start with you coach I imagine you guys always have conversations throughout the seasons and probably at some point you said some shooting would be nice and Reed Shepard represents that yeah it’s it’s something that we you know focused on improving within our team and then a target of ours going into the offseason not not just our guys growing in that area but anybody that we felt like we could get our hands on and select we’d like them them to have that in their skill set and obviously Reed’s one of the best at it raell I know you talked about on draft night and you know look people were out there saying uh I don’t know how deep this draft is and all that there’s Talent every draft and time always tells out you know how talented it it will be but I know you said you just saw something in Reed that stood out among you know just above all the other guys what was it you saw in re sheeper that said this kid is a piece we have to have on our team yeah I mean it’s it definitely starts with the shooting he he had an a historic shooting season following a really successful um high school and a career so it wasn’t it wasn’t it didn’t look super aberrational I mean whenever you’re like the best shooter ever it’s aberrational but uh um and and it was only one year but um but having said that he came in he came in as a very high level shooter and then proceeded to just kind of blow the top off of it so it starts with that but um as we dug deeper yeah it’s it’s I I I think it all comes back to the basketball IQ uh it it just it flashed in all these different ways the the reads were really good the shot selection was really good the defensive plays were really good and and so it seemed to be it seemed to be a real thing and and people who do that in college at at a super high level have been extraord ordar successful in the NBA there there is absolutely no guarantee that that’ll work for him like he’s got to get better and it has to translate uh but the opportunity for it to be there we thought was really special and unique and so we were extraordinarily happy to get them what are the resources you use for those type of there’s tangibles but there’s also those intangibles like you’re talking about basketball IQ and work ethic and things like that what do you do when you’re vetting out these Pro specs to try to find those type of qualities well the I mean the first thing we do is just watch every minute that a kid has ever played and we do that and then we also process every shot he’s ever taken every free throw he’s ever taken and and so we’re we’re very diligent in terms of and not just like looking at his at his career in Kentucky we we go back and so trying to accumulate as much information um uh from from kind of a basketball analytics and a basketball video perspective as is humanly possible and then we aggregate that all up and discuss it and Hammer at it and try and figure out do we think it’s fluky do we think it’s real what are the risks we we do all of that at the very end of the process um what we do is uh try and get to know the person because one thing I’ve kind of found out we’ve we’ve been in this unique position of drafting high for several years now and it was an intuition when we first did it with kind of the very first draft we had which was jayen and alprin um and but but and and we didn’t get a chance to really spend time with alurn in advance I I was actually calling friends in turkey and I was like we were do Turkish dictionary no we we did all kinds of crazy stuff trying to figure out who he was and it turned out we got really good feedback it we got lucky it ended up being very right but with Jaylen we were able to spend real time that was a CO year it’s not I would have happily flown to Turkey if that was even possible but um and then subsequently we we’ve liked that and uh you you’re you’re largely investing in people at a very young age and their physical talents immensely important but it’s it’s it’s honestly not as important as who they are as people and do they are they about the right things are they are they good people are they caring people uh because they’ll be good teammates if they are and if they’re not it’s going to be challenging uh do they have a work ethic do they have a backbone do it’s not do they have a a mental toughness you know we talk a lot about about I think eay spoke about jaylen’s mental toughness this past year being something we really really like alin’s joy for the game is is evident and so I I’m just using those because they’re the two oldest of our of our young core but um but all of that I think really really factors in to the players that they ultimately become so we try and get to know these guys and and and I was lucky I got to spend a lot of time with reeding the pre-draft process and and then at the very end of it quite a bit with his family and yeah we’re we’re pretty blown away he’s he’s he’s got all the elements that you’d want to be successful in life not not just basketball to be successful in life and so I feel really good betting on someone who’s like that it’s totally still a bet it is absolutely incumbent upon him and us to develop and everything else but that’s that’s the process we go about he may let me ask you summer league coming up very soon and look there’s guys who’ve been Summer League MVP that we never hear from again so you take it with a grain of salt but is there is there something a guy can show in summer league to I mean you want to have that trust in a in a guy that who’s going to play and be part of your roster and your rotation but is there anything you can show see traits you can see specifically from somebody in summer league yeah I think you know we take it back to last year um our Men played you know three quarters of a game and you saw everything you need to see in that three quarters and so um cam obviously MVP and then Jabari and tari played two games they were dominant so you knew that end of the season run for them translated into summer league and then carried over into this season so yeah you can get a really good look at guys and and the competitiveness IQ all those things that we’ve seen on film and and scen in workouts um obviously at a different level with with competition out there but you want to see who they are and like Rafel spoke about their character work ethic uh competitiveness and so yeah some guys have had rough starts to their career in summer league and by the end of summer league they’re playing great and so how fast someone can really adapt to the NBA game and different things throwing at them and yeah the IQ part um our coaches get our hands on on these guys for a few weeks now and be our first really real chance to see them and so yeah you can definitely get get things from that but um summer league is just their first step and so you don’t you know sell or buy just based on that and and I think uh you know everything that Rafel mentioned it’ll translate well for Reed into summer league and into his future is there anything specific as far I know you spent a lot of time thinking about rotations and situations and how you use specific players is there anything you say I want Reed Shepard to be like player X or is somebody like as a comparison of somebody maybe you’ve played with before a coach before um I mean the shooting ability is what stands out immediately and so you look at the best Shooters in the game and you think of ways to implement them to doing things like that but uh similar to what we did with Fred at times last year we’d like to play him on and off ball you can do that with Reed you know he’s a guy that comes off screens and pin downs and or handles and makes the right decision so that’s a luxury that he can do both of those things um but you know that’s just plans for the future and and and somebody who’s not super tall and super lengthy but plays good defense yeah and so all those things uh obviously we we saw in him and and end up being the reason why we took him at third but um yeah there’s not one specific guy but if he can be a a little bit of all those guys the shooters that we just mentioned whether it’s Curry or you know some Nash with the IQ the the guys that he’s kind of been mentioned with obviously great players and we’d be happy with that raell I do wanted to talk about that specifically because you know everything you read you know people start P oh shooter shooter shooter he is I guess I don’t know you call combo guard can play multiple positions but the defense I think is underrated I mean five steals against in the LSU game against Old Miss against aubert I mean he is active getting his hands out there and defending is that what you saw in film and what you would you about him yeah I mean it’s it’s a big part of it he yeah he he he was a really good player in college like just obscenely good and and it wasn’t you can’t be really good if you’re not a good defensive player he’s a very very good defensive player in college excuse me the the gap between College defense and the NBA defense is is enormous so like really good college Defenders come in as really bad NBA Defenders he’s going to have to grow in that area he’s going to have to figure it out but again like I’m I like a lot of what we’re investing in with him is we think he is going to figure it out I don’t know the timing of it but um everybody’s bigger stronger faster in the NBA and so you know you have to make those adjustments and he may have to change his game a little bit but um but yeah if you can’t do it at the college level you have no chance of doing it at the NBA level and if you’re uber successful at the college level you have a good chance in time of being able to be effective at the NBA level all right so Reed Shepard now into the fold of course the goal is to win as much as possible coach I’ll do start with you what does this team need to do to make that extra leap as far as playing more consistently I would say with special be Jaylen green and aler and Shing I see the biggest word is growth for everybody in this off season and so I think some guys got the their first taste of some success this year uh you know we had the right mix of Fred and and I’m sorry Jeff and um the veterans who brought in Dylan not only those guys but Aaron and and you know Jan and Jack and those guys just seeing routin every day that some of these guys hadn’t seen their first few years so growth in general um you know I think being consistent is going to be another big word we use you know we had some winning streaks losing streaks and we want to be more consistent across the board not lose three in a row or have to win six in a row or 11 to end the season but um you know being more consistent and so those two areas are going to take us uh to a Next Step next year raell I me same kind of idea I mean look we were at the draft party last week awes I mean everybody I talked to said exceeded expectations on the fan turnout fans are excited man I mean you you built this young core and now it starts to go all right let’s go play in game playoffs next year let’s go uh what for you I mean is you you’ve built the roster now and now it’s just about fine-tuning right yeah I mean we we really like our group and we’re still extraordinarily young like you know we’re everybody everybody’s nine months older than they were last year right so just being able to buy beers yeah yeah some not all right so like um um but yeah no it’s it’s we we the the goal is the goal is to grow it organically if we can and we think we can and and to keep the group together and have some real synergies I mean one thing about last year is nobody you know nobody played together and and definitely nobody and no and the coaches hadn’t coached them and eay was trying to implement a defense and an offense and he’s talked about how simple he kept it on both ends of the ball at the beginning and then and then you know over time we expanded and and and that gave him advantages to create advantages on a game by game basis and so we should start you always have to start at the basics but we should start slightly ahead and and be able to implement more and be able to cater our strengths more and our strength should be stronger guys should be we should know more about what a guy can do this is a matchup we can go to and feel better about it because it’s not a first year player it’s a second-year player or it’s not a third-year player it’s a fourth year player and there are big there are big differences in that and then physically our guys should all be bigger stronger faster um and better able to handle the rigors of the NBA game that should in theory all happen we still have to make it happen like it is all about the work and and and none of us are taking for granted that it that it’s automatic you know and and I think we’ve had a really good summer with our guys up to this point but it’s it’s only a third of the way through the summer and and the grind continues and you know we have a good group of guys we are all about the hard work but but the hard work is super important hey for some of those free agents out there keep signing the East all right we’ll make make this West a little bit Road a little bit easier for us here all right that’s going to do it Rafael Stone Oka thanks guys for the time as always we’ll talk to you during the season and down the road thanks guys appreciate it all right Chris Gordy Ross vreal

Houston Rockets General Manager Rafael Stone and head coach Ime Udoka join SportsTalk790 to discuss the addition of Kentucky guard Reed Sheppard who they drafted several days ago.

Stone & Udoka discuss what they like about Sheppard, what he can bring to the Rockets roster and much more. Will Sheppard start the year on the team roster or the G-League? Is Sheppard’s defense ready for the NBA? We discuss all of this on your home for Houston Rockets basketball, SportsTalk790!