The Houston Rockets made their Summer League debut Friday night. This offseason, the Rockets traded away their tenth overall pick for Kevin Durant and thus, don’t have any high-profile rookies on the roster. But fans will take great interest in one returning player this season. The front office will be hoping Reed Sheppard is ready and shipshape for duty.

Sheppard had a solid outing in his second Summer League opener: 28 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 3 blocks. Those numbers admittedly came in a loss, but Sheppard helped to keep the game close right up to the end.

While he wasn’t fabulously efficient from the field, going 10-25, he did what the Rockets will want from him this season. He jacked up three-pointers. Sheppard took 15 attempts from beyond the three-point line, making six of them for 40%. Not sensational, but solid. And one of the Rockets’ focal points with Sheppard next season will be showing less hesitancy from the perimeter.

Of course, there’s only so much anyone can read into Summer League games. Sheppard’s confidence is up because he’s playing against weaker opposition. He’s showing no hesitancy shooting threes because he knows it’s the game plan to feed him the ball. He’s making plays defensively because play calls are going at a snail’s pace compared to the NBA, and everything is telegraphed.

But Sheppard’s dribble does look a little smoother than it did in last year’s Summer League. Back then, he looked like Bob Cousy playing ’60s rules, conscious not to let his hand touch the side of the basketball for fear of an immediate carry violation.

Sheppard’s solid 1960s fundamentals led some fans astray on the impact he would have in his rookie season. Rather than a low-turnover, right-place-right-time sharpshooter, he was a hesitant, undersized guard in a league full of very fast giants.

Sheppard’s rookie season was hopefully an adjustment period. He played in 52 games and averaged just 12.6 minutes. A significant reason was that he shot only 35.1% from the field and 33.8% from three. Another was that the six-foot-two, 185-pound rookie was unsurprisingly an outlier amid Houston’s fourth-ranked defense.

While his frame imposes inevitable, career-long limitations on him on the defensive end, there are clear ways for Sheppard to improve. He has a great mentor on the roster for elite, small guard defense in Fred VanVleet. The Rockets could even look into acquiring another one in former Rocket Chris Paul. Sheppard’s defensive discipline and awareness will have to be better if he wants to see a larger role in year two.

It’s worth noting that even a larger role for Sheppard would still be a relatively small one. Luckily for Houston, Sheppard has shown more willingness to embrace such a role than the team’s other project piece from last season. Cam Whitmore has since been traded  to the Washington Wizards, where he can get all the street-ball-wizard opportunities he understandably craved (without worrying too much about any actual winning). All of Houston’s developmental resources will now be principally dedicated to Sheppard, hence 25 shots in his opening Summer League game. More such outings are surely to come.

Houston’s success in 2025-26 by no means depends on Sheppard taking a sophomore leap. They have a strong defensive roster with an all-time scoring great, a rising young All-Star in Alperen Sengun, and a possible future superstar in Amen Thompson. But the roster does still lack backcourt flexibility. A leap from Sheppard would help to address that nicely.

The Summer League may not tell fans much, but Sheppard is clearly trying his best to tell the front office what they want to hear. The unassuming Kentuckian may not be the most audatious young prospect in the league, but so far, his audition is going well and his prospects are looking strong.