3 best NBA landing spots for Reed Sheppard to excel in the league

Big Blue Nation’s dream of Reed Sheppard staying one more year and playing for his father’s old college roommate is officially dead. Sheppard announced on Thursday that he’s heading for the NBA. 

While Jeff Sheppard won two national titles at Kentucky, he only played 18 games in the NBA, so Reed will get to live that part of the basketball dream. 

The 2024 NBA Draft is not a loaded one, so it’s the perfect chance for Sheppard to be drafted inside the top 10. While the most money comes from being selected as highly as possible, the success of Sheppard’s career could be determined by his landing spot. 

For many draft prospects, the right fit is everything and Sheppard’s skillset would fit perfectly with these three teams who will be drafting in the lottery this summer. 

The Charlotte Hornets already have a point guard in LaMelo Ball, but he only played 22 games last season and hasn’t been reliably healthy for much of his career. Even if he does play close to 82 games next year, the beauty of Sheppard’s game is that he can play on or off the ball, a perfect complement to LaMelo. 

Really, the Hornets' future is riding on Brandon Miller, not LaMelo, and with Sheppard’s shooting and elite off-ball defense, he’d be a great No. 2 to Miller, if and when Charlotte moves on from LaMelo to shift the focus of the franchise. 

Sheppard was a 52% three-point shooter who flashed high-level athleticism and averaged over four assists a game as a freshman. Any team is going to benefit from that, but Charlotte’s roster is in such a state of flux that he’d become a foundational piece.