UK basketball has had just one NBA Rookie of the Year. Will Reed Sheppard be the second?

Just as he did over his first few games in a University of Kentucky basketball uniform, Reed Sheppard made quick work of silencing his doubters during his opening days as an NBA player.

This time last year, Sheppard was the breakout star on the Wildcats’ summer trip to Canada for the GLOBL Jam exhibition tournament, but no one knew exactly how that would translate to actual games until he took college basketball by storm a few months later.

Over the course of the 2023-24 season, Sheppard emerged as an analytics darling and a favorite among NBA draft analysts, but questions remained about his size, relative athleticism and positional fit at the highest level of the sport.

Obviously, Sheppard will still need to prove himself in real NBA games, but his performances from the get-go in the Las Vegas Summer League over the past week and a half have turned him into one of the betting favorites to earn rookie of the year honors in 2025.

In the 71-year history of that award, only one former Kentucky player has won it.

Sheppard could very well be the second.

The No. 3 overall pick in this year’s NBA draft got off to a hot start to the summer league in his first game with the Houston Rockets, scoring 23 points and going 4-for-6 from 3-point range. In game two, Sheppard dazzled again, recording 22 points to go with seven assists, six rebounds and five steals.

Before his first weekend as a pro was even complete, the former Wildcat was receiving national recognition as a bonafide rookie of the year candidate.

In Sheppard’s first — and likely only — taste of the summer league, he averaged 20.0 points, 4.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. Sheppard, who turned 20 years old last month, earned his league-wide praise while falling short in his most celebrated category — shooting just 27.8% from 3-point range.

There’s a large enough sample size there to know he can shoot, however, and there are no questions about how that skill will translate to his NBA career.

As a result of these summer performances, Sheppard has climbed up the odds charts.

Immediately after the NBA draft, FanDuel placed the Kentucky native in a tie for fifth in the NBA Rookie of the Year betting rundown, with 10-1 odds (alongside SEC Player of the Year Dalton Knecht, who will play for the Los Angeles Lakers).

The four players with the shortest odds at that time were No. 2 pick Alex Sarr of the Wizards (+450), top pick Zaccharie Risacher of the Hawks (+600), No. 4 pick Stephon Castle of the Spurs (+750) and No. 11 pick Matas Buzelis of the Bulls (+850).

And now?

FanDuel has Sheppard as the No. 2 betting choice at +700 (the same as 7-1 odds). The favorite after summer league play is the reigning two-time national player of the year, Purdue’s Zach Edey, who was selected by the Memphis Grizzlies with the No. 9 overall pick (a move that was criticized in NBA circles on draft night).

Edey, who got off to a hot summer start before being sidelined with ankle issues, is at +600 on the FanDuel betting board, which has Risacher at +800, followed by Sarr, Buzelis, Knecht and Castle all sitting at 10-1 odds. Another UK one-and-done, Minnesota Timberwolves rookie Rob Dillingham, is next at 15-1 odds.

Former Kentucky players Antonio Reeves and Justin Edwards are not on the list, which includes 25 players and ends with Lakers rookie Bronny James (300-1 odds).

NBA Rookie of the Year odds from other betting outlets:

▪ Bet365 also has Sheppard (+600), second behind Edey (+550), with Dillingham at 16-1 odds.

▪ ESPN Bet has Edey (+550) and Sheppard (+650) at 1-2 on the list, with Dillingham at 14-1 odds.

▪ DraftKings has Sheppard (+800) at No. 3 behind Edey (+600) and Risacher (+700), with Dillingham at 17-1 odds.

UK basketball’s NBA rookies

If Sheppard (or Dillingham) were to earn NBA Rookie of the Year honors following the 2024-25 season, it would mark just the second time that’s happened in UK basketball history.

The first year of the award was 1953 — and the NBA All-Rookie team was created exactly 10 years later — but it took more than two decades for a Wildcat to be honored.

Sam Bowie was the first All-Rookie team selection from Kentucky in the 1984-85 season. Jamal Mashburn earned the honor in 1994, and fellow Rick Pitino era players Antoine Walker (1997) and Ron Mercer (1998) followed him a few years later.

And later came John Calipari.

With three No. 1 overall picks, 25 lottery selections and 50 total players in the NBA draft in his 15 years as Kentucky’s coach, it might be expected that Calipari would have had more rookie of the year honorees during his time in Lexington.

But there was only one.

It wasn’t John Wall, the original one-and-done superstar of the Calipari era. Wall and UK teammate DeMarcus Cousins finished 2-3 in the NBA Rookie of the Year voting behind unanimous No. 1 choice Blake Griffin, who sat out his entire first season in the league with an injury and made his debut a year and a half after being selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft.

It wasn’t Anthony Davis, perhaps the most decorated one-and-done player of all time. Davis was national player of the year as a freshman, leading UK to the 2012 national title and being selected with the No. 1 pick while earning an Olympic gold medal that summer. Davis finished second in rookie of the year voting to Damian Lillard, who was three years older than Davis after spending a full four seasons in college.

Kentucky’s only NBA Rookie of the Year so far has been Karl-Anthony Towns, who was Calipari’s third (and final) No. 1 overall pick at UK after playing for the 38-1 team during the 2014-15 season. Towns received all 130 first-place votes after his first year with the Timberwolves.

Former UK teammate Devin Booker was fourth in the rookie of the year voting that season. He and Towns became the sixth and seventh ex-Cats of the Calipari era to earn NBA All-Rookie first-team honors, just six years into his run as Kentucky’s coach.

UK has not had a first-team All-Rookie selection since then, however. Five former Wildcats over that span — Jamal Murray, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyler Herro, Immanuel Quickley and Cason Wallace — have earned second-team honors.

Calipari has one more draft class to add to his Kentucky-era tally, and, at this early stage, Sheppard appears to be the most likely to reach that level.

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