Part 2: The Ups and Downs

Coming into his first year as a general manager, Jevohn Shepherd expected there to be growing pains. He knew that he would be faced with new challenges and placed in unfamiliar situations. He’s not afraid to admit there were early struggles, saying, “it was intimidating at first.” But thanks to some hep from the front office around him and some personal perseverance, Shepherd was able to adapt and overcome.

Shepherd credits a large part of the success he had to his ability to embrace challenges as they come along. He takes pride in learning from both successes and failures and enjoying the journey along the way. The way he sees it, that’s the only way to grow as a person, which he aspires to do every day.

However, as much as he enjoys taking things one day at a time and living in the present, there was one part of the journey that he wishes he could have predicted.

“I wish I knew our whole roster was going to get wiped out,” Shepherd said with a laugh. “That way I would have had some contingency early on.”

Of course, Shepherd is referring to the BlackJacks first round playoff matchup against the Hamilton Honey Badgers. What should have been a time of celebration quickly turned to panic when it was announced that there had been a possible COVID-19 contact tracing back to the team. Due to league health and safety measures, any player that wasn’t fully vaccinated was ruled ineligible to play.

“We got notice that there could potentially be contact tracing, and in my head, I’m thinking, ‘No. This is not going to hit us at the end of the season. It’ll be fine. It’ll work itself out,’” Shepherd said. “Then a day and a half later, we get the news that more than half our roster that isn’t fully vaccinated won’t be eligible to play.”

The news broke just a few days before the BlackJacks were set to travel down to Hamilton for their first-round meeting. Shepherd and the rest of the BlackJacks front office staff had to work fast in order to be able to even field a team. But the man in charge of the whole operation is quick to admit that it took a while for the news to really sink in.

“I was actually in Vegas at Summer League at the time, and I remember looking out the window at the Las Vegas strip, then I remember myself looking at the roof,” Shepherd said with a laugh. “I don’t remember how I got from standing up to laying down, but I just stared at the ceiling for about five or six hours. Then it clicked like, ‘You’ve got to kick it into gear now.’ And I attribute the players. There’s an abundance of players that want to play in this league. We had a list of players we had looked at early on that we just dipped back into that pool. They were guys that had been reaching out to us throughout the season to see if there were any opportunities.

“So again, you go back to the drawing board, you look at your analytics, you look up your film, and then you try to fill what you need in that short span of time. Are you going to recreate a completely new roster or are you going to try to fill the holes that you do have? You throw everything at the wall and hope that it sticks. And it stuck! We came out with a victory and I think Chad Posthumus was a great pickup.

“Honestly, you really have to credit the guys for being prepared,” Shepherd said. “I have to credit our whole front office staff because they put in countless hours over those two or three days to put it together; our support staff as well. There are just so many things that go into it, and fortunately it worked out the right way for us.”

It was an experience that, while incredibly stressful - and having come out the other side of it with everyone safe and healthy – Shepherd is grateful for having gone through.

“That week there was a stressful week. It gave me a couple of grey hairs, but I’ll say this: we learned everything we could have in the course of a week. That was almost two seasons in the course of seven days. Not only did I get my rookie season out of the way, but I got my sophomore year just in that week there.”

Even though the BlackJacks would fall in their next game to the eventual champion Edmonton Stingers, Shepherd remains proud of what the team accomplished during the year.

Coming into the season, Shepherd put a lot of emphasis on this BlackJacks team having length, size, and shooting ability. He also looked for intangibles like basketball IQ and maturity. While he admits that he learned more about the CEBL and what styles work best in the league as the year went on, overall, he liked what the team showed in the aspects they were built around.

Shepherd is hoping that the team will be able to keep their size and shooting ability going forward. He also believes that having continuity in the roster plays a big part in having team success. With the team announcing in August that Shepherd will be back to lead the front office again next season, he’s already started looking ahead to the team he wants to field in 2022.

The CEBL is known for having a high roster turnover rate, but the clubs that have had success have found a way to keep their team together. Under Shepherd’s helm, that’s something the BlackJacks want to emulate.

“If you’re looking at Edmonton, that’s a team that’s had cohesiveness for the last two or three years,” Shepherd said. “All the teams that have had success… Niagara’s had some guys that have returned, same coaching staff, same system implemented. In a league like this where you’re getting guys that could be coming in two or three games into the season or leaving two or three games early at the end of the season, you have to have a foundational unit that has played together that continues to have that cohesiveness, so that when guys are in and out, there’s no drop off.

“But, if every year you’re changing rosters, you’re changing staff, and then you have those variables of guys coming in and out, it makes it that much tougher for you to continue to have a successful team.”

Whoever is on the team next year – whether they be on the court or behind the bench – will have access to Shepherd’s vast wealth of knowledge as a player and analyst to draw from. However, he does his best not to overstep his boundaries. While he is more than happy to give advice to those who ask, Shepherd prefers not to interject himself into the coaching staff or roster. The way he sees it, everyone on the team has been brought onboard because they are talented at what they do.

“Everybody is a leader in their own right,” Shepherd said. “Your coaching staff, that’s their role, to coach the team. I’m hands off there. If I’m asked questions, I’ll have some input. I will give some insight from my observations, from what I see. But at the end of the day, as a coach, that’s your role to do as you feel, and you should have full autonym over how you’re going to coach this team. I didn’t go through the process to be a coach, so I shouldn’t be the one stepping on those boundaries to have any input there.

“As far as the players go, you guys are here for a reason,” he added. “You guys are pros, you’re here because you do at what you do at a high level. I may come in and give some advice from my perspective, my playing days, where I feel like you could be more productive or impact our team a bit more. And that’s more so - not as a GM – but more so the relationship I have with some of these guys. I would have been giving them that advice regardless.

“These guys know what they have to do… At the end of the day, you’re measured by your production on the court. Whether it’s from teams in the CEBL or teams in FIBA, the G-League or the NBA.”

Read Part 3 here.