Sophomore guard Stephon Castle is having a heck of a postseason with the San Antonio Spurs. The fourth pick in the 2024 draft is averaging 19.9 points per game and 44.0% from 3 so far these playoffs. Some Houston Rockets fans are watching despondently, wondering what might have been. Reed Sheppard, the third pick in that draft, just got done averaging 12.2 points on 29.6% from 3.
Ironically, the Rockets prioritized Sheppard over Castle for his shooting. Why has the Rockets’ Castle decision gone so wrong?
Was The Houston Rockets’ Stephon Castle-Reed Sheppard Decision A Mistake?
Castle scored 32 points on 16 attempts to help the Spurs end the Minnesota Timberwolves season on Friday night. He even achieved a convoluted NBA record of being the youngest player with 30+ points, 10+ rebounds, 5+ assists, and 5+ made threes in a playoff game (h/t Jay Postrado of The Sporting News).
Castle has spurred his team to the third round, and yet the Rockets spurned him in the draft.
In Sheppard’s last game of 2025-26, he went 4-of-19 from the field and was a -24. The selection of Sheppard at 3 has probably never looked worse for the Rockets. There’s a chance it will look worse soon enough, though. Thanks to the extraterrestrial reach of Victor Wembanyama, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, the Spurs appear to be genuine contenders for the NBA title.
However, the Spurs’ next opponents will be the Oklahoma City Thunder. While the Spurs certainly have the most intimidating interior defense in the league, the Thunder have the best-performing defense overall. A steady diet of Alex Caruso and Luguentz Dort might make the Rockets’ Castle assessment look more reasonable.
Justifying the Rockets’ Castle Assessment
As for Castle’s shooting, 2.8 of his 3.6 regular-season 3-point attempts were considered “wide open.” Even so, he shot just 33.2%. In the playoffs, 3.3 of his 4.5 were wide open, with the remainder being “open.” Defenses are not respecting his shot at all. Obviously, being able to punish that is a huge win for the Spurs. But how long his hot streak will last is impossible to say. OKC likes to pester ball-handlers and passing lanes. They tire offensive players out and frustrate them. Will Castle still shoot well against that amount of pressure?
But, as is obvious to more than just the Rockets, Castle is an excellent young player. Listed at 6-foot-6, he creates rim pressure and plays lockdown defense. Rockets fans’ regrets aren’t all about missing out on Castle, though. A lot of it is their disappointment in Sheppard.
Sheppard averaged 13.5 points and 3.4 assists on 43.0% from the field and 39.4% from 3 in the 2025-26 regular season. Sheppard was clearly the better shooter over the larger sample size. So, why didn’t it translate to the playoffs?
In the 2025-26 NBA Playoffs, Sheppard shot just 34.5% on 4.8 “wide open” 3 -pointers per game. At times, he looked scared. Knowing he was out there almost purely for his shooting, knowing that his team desperately needed any semblance of respectability from range, may have been too much pressure for him to handle. The tough love culture of Rockets head coach Ime Udoka might be a bad fit.
Most likely, though, it was just bad luck. 3-point shooting is like shooting dice. Even Golden State Warriors icon Stephen Curry hits snake eyes once in a while. The problem for Sheppard isn’t really the shooting. Lakers players were kicking themselves on every one of Sheppard’s wide-open attempts. His floor spacing made a visible difference for Houston’s beleaguered defense.
What Holds Sheppard Back
The problem for Sheppard is everything but the shooting. In particular, his defense and his ball-handling. If only one of them were significantly improved, Sheppard would become a much more valuable player. The Rockets needed steady ball-handling this postseason, but Sheppard wasn’t ready to provide it, with brutal late-game turnovers being the result. Without a proper point guard skill set, it’s harder to justify covering for Sheppard on defense. But because of his size and alarming propensity to gamble for steals, his defense needs constant supervision.
The fact is that Castle is generally easier to plug-and-play, and may have more star potential. But if you tried to plug-and-play Castle on the Rockets, you’d still wind up fighting not to get swept by the Luka Doncic-less Los Angeles Lakers. And even a star version of Castle would be a questionable fit alongside Rockets young franchise cornerstones, Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun. Sheppard could be exactly what the Rockets’ current roster construction desperately needs. He just isn’t there yet. Admittedly, he may never be, but roster construction is like shooting dice, too.
The unfortunate reality for Houston fans is that the team already seems to be on the outside looking in on the next generation of contenders. Catching OKC always looked remote, and San Antonio has far surpassed them. Sheppard was their last of four straight top-four draft picks before trying to compete. So far, their best player looks like a guy they got at 16th in Sengun. There’s already talk of the Rockets seeking more shortcuts via superstar trade acquisitions. Whether the Rockets’ Castle pick had happened or not, trying to contend in this era without a Wembanyama or a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander might just be building castles in the sky.
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