As the Houston Rockets enter the season without starting point guard Fred VanVleet, the team will need to lean heavily on young guards Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard to hone in their playmaking and ball-handling abilities on the fly.
Yet, as was pointed out by Bleacher Report's Andy Bailey, the Rockets may have a little more room for error given the defensive attention that both Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun will command.
Although Thompson and Sheppard have never before been asked to take on this type of a workload, and such a transition could be relatively dicey for Houston, they can take solace in the fact that neither player will at any time be the focal point of opposing defenses.