Top candidates for NBA Sixth Man of the Year award
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Rockets exec views Boston's Payton Pritchard as potential comparison for Reed Sheppard
Payton Pritchard gradually broke through as an undersized guard with the Celtics, and Houston is hoping for a similar trajectory with Reed Sheppard. Once upon a time, Payton Pritchard was a young and undersized guard who struggled to get consistent playing time on the Boston Celtics. While always a respected shooter, he needed to improve defensively and become more of an all-around player to earn regular minutes from coaches such as Ime Udoka and Joe Mazzulla. By his fourth season, Pritchard became a rotation fixture for the 2024 NBA champions. In his fifth season of 2024-25, he went on to win the league's Sixth Man of the Year award. With Udoka now in Houston, the hope is that Pritchard's rise can perhaps provide a blueprint for second-year guard Reed Sheppard. Quoting a front-office executive from the Rockets, Spotrac's Keith Smith writes: Big year coming for Reed. I've seen you make the Payton Pritchard comp before, and I think that's sort of fair. Pritchard had to prove it to earn his minutes. Same with Reed. We had a tough backcourt to get minutes in last year. This year, there are minutes there for him, if he takes them. Ime (Udoka) doesn't give anyone anything. If you play, it's because you earned his trust and earned that time. Reed did everything we asked, and now he's on his way to earning those rotation minutes. It's worth noting that while Pritchard was drafted late in the 2020 first round, Sheppard went at No. 3 overall in 2024. So, the Rockets' hope is that Sheppard's development into a consistently good player for a title contender can be expedited, and perhaps come a bit more quickly than it did for Pritchard. We'll find out starting this fall, when Sheppard is expected to have a regular rotation role for a Houston team that enters with championship aspirations.
