Reed Sheppard completed his unlikely journey on Wednesday from a nationally unheralded recruit from North Laurel High School to forging an undeniable path to the NBA.

Take a minute to understand just how unbelievable it is really.

Everyone knew Kentucky would have its annual share of freshmen drafted on Wednesday when it signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation last year. Please find me the person who, upon signing the heralded haul, said Sheppard would be among them this year.

Two of the Wildcats' top 10 recruits from the class — D.J. Wagner and Aaron Bradshaw — will be playing at Arkansas and Ohio State, respectively, next season.

Sheppard?

He’ll be suiting up for Houston Rockets in the fall after being the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft held at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

Even in an NBA draft class that’s considered a down year for talent overall, let’s not normalize what Sheppard just accomplished.

UK's crop of lottery picks under former coach John Calipari were generally players who could have turned pro out of high school and still have been picked, if rules allowed. What Sheppard just did was play his way into the draft.

Sheppard was ranked 79th in the class of 2023 by 247Sports. He fared better in its composite rankings, posting at 43rd, but some sites that ranked him higher gave him a "Kentucky bump" after committing or elevated him after he was named a McDonald's All-American.

There have been players who had similar big discrepancies in their evaluations that jumped to become lottery picks in a year.

In the 2021 NBA Draft, Alabama guard Joshua Primo was ranked No. 62 in the 247Sports composite and 21st by 247Sports and was drafted 12th overall by the San Antonio Spurs. In last year’s draft, Central Florida’s Taylor Hendricks was ranked 84th by 247Sports and was 67th in the composite, yet was selected ninth overall by the Utah Jazz.

Don’t let revisionists play with history either. No, everyone didn’t just know Sheppard was going to make it from the time he stepped on the court. Even with his pedigree of a father, Jeff, who played for UK’s 1996 and ’98 national championship teams. And mother, the former Stacy Reed, who also played basketball for the Cats.

Some believe UK’s scholarship offer had as much to do with Calipari respecting a legacy as it did actually getting a player who could help immediately.

Even those who knew Sheppard could play figured he’d be a good college player who would be around a few years and would help with the roster continuity.

No one knew a year ago that Sheppard would be shaking hands with NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday.

Not even most NBA scouts.

There’s no way to pinpoint when exactly Sheppard shot up league draft boards. But a general consensus from scouts I spoke with went something like this:

On UK’s pro day, Sheppard was recognized as a player with potential. Not one-and-done potential, more like, “keep an eye on” potential for later in his development. Like maybe his junior year he’d be someone to talk seriously about.

When the Cats started the regular season, Sheppard began raising eyebrows. But the skeptics among the scouts figured something must be wrong with him, that Calipari must be hiding a weakness.

The red flags came because Sheppard was outrageously efficient, yet he hadn’t cracked the starting lineup.

By mid to late December, the scouts figured out Sheppard was the real deal. So much so that by January they started to nitpick at his game.

The questions mainly centered on if he could defend one-on-one in the NBA because he had the tendency to play out of position at UK.

The analytics highlighted by his steal percentage of 4.7, which ranked 11th according to KenPom.com, said he could. The eye test backed it up too, factoring in how Sheppard played in the biggest moments. And he made eyes pop with his 3-point percentage of 52.1 that led the nation.

His performance in the NBA combine solidified his status when his 42-inch vertical, which tied for the best mark of all participants, further confirmed he’s got NBA athleticism.

All of that brought Sheppard to where he is now.

He made making the NBA look easy and we should stop to appreciate what he just did.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Reed Sheppard NBA draft 2024 rise unlikely: Kentucky basketball player