Worried about Eric Gordon's lackluster play? Don't be!

A few days before the Nov. 13 game against the Clippers, the pain reached an unbearable point. He had to seek medical attention, with an MRI revealing that there was debris in his knee from a prior cleanup. Gordon would need surgery, which would shelve him for six weeks, an eternity in the basketball world.

As his teammates prepared for a national television affair, Gordon made his final rounds downstairs before leaving through the administrative entrance. Dressed in all black in the nippy November air, he stopped to talk briefly with John Lucas and Russell Westbrook by their vehicles before finally leaving Toyota Center. There was a noticeable limp in his gait, different from his usual bounce. “I had to get it done now,” he said to me on his way out.

“You know I always tell people,” Gordon says. “When you’re already dealing with an injury and then you’re on a team where, you know, it’s a championship-caliber team and you just like had to hit those moments to where you have consistency on just straight winning. It just throws everything in a tough bind.”

“Like I’m not gonna lie, we’ve hit a lot of low points right before they shut down the season, you know. Like, you know we can flip the switch on and off really quickly, but we just didn’t look so good before they canceled the season.”

The Efficiency Equation

Gordon would miss the next 22 games, not returning to the fold until the end of the year in a blowout loss in New Orleans. One of the lone positives from the game was Gordon’s performance, 20 points in 22 minutes.

But there was a huge caveat. Harden, Westbrook and Clint Capela missed the contest with either injury or load management. This game, while great for Gordon and his spirits, was nothing more than an anomaly. There was no one to defer to, no one to take away the majority of touches.

It’s at this point where the underlying theme of player role and efficiency comes to the surface. As stated earlier, Gordon’s role in Houston is generally a bit more fleshed out than players on other teams. He’s essentially a starter, whether he’s on the floor at tipoff or not. D’Antoni has always played him starter’s minutes and he uses up a starter’s amount of plays while on the floor.

Gordon has often said his game doesn’t matter starting or coming off the bench, and that’s true, sort of. It didn’t necessarily matter when Chris Paul and Harden shared the backcourt because Paul’s usage practically mirrored Gordon’s (22.1 to 22.0 during the 2018-19 season).

That dynamic isn’t the same now. Westbrook and Paul operate the point guard position in a different way, Paul, the steady drummer, and Westbrook, the fierce lead guitarist. Westbrook’s efficiency began to skyrocket around this time as space he was given to work with increased, his role rising as Capela’s diminished. His usage is north of 30, 34.4 to be exact, superstar territory. Harden’s, is 36.4. That’s nearly 70 percent of the offense coming from two players.

Gordon would have to find a way to fit in. And once you combine the mental aspect of that, along with injuries, it’s very easy to predict a dip in efficiency.

“You know, to be honest,” Gordon says, “If we’re ever going to win something, we have to get to a point where everybody is having a good game pretty consistently, almost every night. To me, if you ever want to win a championship, all your top guys on the team have to do well. Like when you go in the playoffs and you have to have four to five guys playing well and everybody has to have a chance to be successful. And you know, it can’t be where two guys are playing very, very good and everyone else is still trying to find their way on the court. There has to be a system where we know what’s gonna possibly happen every single night. And with us, it just hasn’t been that way all season. There hasn’t been really one player that you can just say, ‘He’s having a great night almost every night.’ You know, consistency from a standpoint.”



If we can agree on the fact that “high-level” role players generally have usage rates between 20 and 25, it’s easy to see Gordon’s struggles this season juxtaposed with his peers. One interesting thing is Gordon’s usage actually has stayed consistent, from the time he took home Sixth Man of the Year in 2017 until this day. It’s a bit of a testament to his skillset and the trust D’Antoni puts in him that the role hasn’t swayed.

Kelly Oubre’s season fits best with the trendline, not to say he’s the prototypical role player, but given his usage, his offensive output best fits the average of upper-tier role players. But all usage is made different, especially when you look at scenarios. Gordon Hayward and Norman Powell actually used fewer possessions than Gordon but were able to post far higher true shooting percentages. Gordon’s hovers right around 51 percent, less than the much-maligned Carmelo Anthony, even in his mini redemption tour.

In Houston’s offense, Gordon is asked to do a number of things but he really has one primary job: take the pressure off of Harden and Westbrook. That can come in a variety of ways, either in driving scenarios, making extra passes as a tertiary playmaker or, more importantly, spotting up. You could look at the 9 percent increase in deep balls as a health reason, meaning saving your knees from driving and simply launching from a stationary position, or you could view it from a role lense, trying to find the sweet spot while Gordon’s on the floor with Harden and/or Westbrook.

Season | Total 3PA | "Deeper" 3PA beyond 24 feet | % of all 3PA | Deep 3P%
2016-17 | 661 | 452 | 68.30% | 36.90%
2017-18 | 608 | 451 | 74.20% | 35.00%
2018-19 | 600 | 445 | 74.20% | 35.70%
2019-20 | 288 | 238 | 83.00% | 34.50%

“A little bit of both,” Gordon says. “Cause I’m still trying to find my way of staying healthy but you also got to understand when you have James or Russ, you might have to take more because they are really more primary ballhandlers. So sometimes I don’t have the ball as much.”

Houston has seen a healthy amount of success during Gordon’s tenure relative to other franchises around the league, but there’s an increased tendency to cast him in the light of a “shooter”. It’s a box he doesn’t particularly like to be in. Per Synergy, Gordon still grades very well in pick-and-roll and isolation scenarios as the primary ballhandler, placing in the 93rd and 85th percentile, respectively. It’s in spot-up and transition where he struggles, scoring just .863 and .929 points per 100 possessions, good for just the 29th and 14th percentiles.

Vid

“Yeah, man,” Gordon explains. “You know, this league is built on a lot (of that), I’ve been really underrated throughout my whole career. You know, I’ve had years where I’ve averaged over 20 points, so you know a lot of people have a lot of short term memory. When there [are] big games and big moments where we played the right way, it’s easy for me to deliver. Like there’s a reason why they gave me this extension. It’s not just based on … there’s a reason why the Rockets gave me this extension and they know what I can bring to the table. And they know other teams would like (me as well) ’cause I’ve been consistent throughout my whole career.”

 

As difficult a season as this has been for Gordon, one thing that’s kept him steady has been the relationships he’s built while being a part of the organization.

Of course, it starts with his head coach and for good reason. Gordon never won Sixth Man of the Year until he joined forces with D’Antoni, so he understands there’s a bond there that might not have existed with previous head coaches. D’Antoni is also as honest as they come in terms of what players should expect on his team and he’s been straightforward with Gordon in their numerous conversations about his struggles.

“Yeah. We always talk about certain points and everything but it’s just tough because it’s hard to have a staple,” Gordon said. “Because you just don’t know on any night if you’re going to have a big shooting night or not, or you know, every game can change and things. But at least he’s communicative. I just know Coach is a good guy, whether people believe it or not, it’s easy to know that he’s a great guy, period.”

Apart from D’Antoni,Gordon’s been able to confide in Coach Lucas. Anyone who’s spent time around the team knows they’re an inseparable bunch. Coach Lucas will always have an extra joke or two for Gordon but there’s also the ability to connect with him in ways he might not with others. Lucas sees a bit of him inside Gordon from the team-first mentality and the ability to have the tough, honest conversations.

“You know, the real reason why I like dealing with John is because he naturally cares,” Gordon said. “He’s more than just a basketball coach. You can ask any player that’s ever played for him. He just cares, you know, at the end of the day. He’s a jokester and all that, but at the end of the day, he just cares ’cause he gets it. And that’s why I think that gives him a knack over a lot of people around the league. He’s upfront and he cares. So he’s gonna always tell you things that you don’t want to hear and he’s going to always be able to work with you. He’s a working guy. So you know, he’ll be there for you through any situation.

“He’s a no-excuses kind of guy. and you know there’s going to be games where you are going to shoot less and he still wants you to do well. He’s a guy who always says stay in shape. Always the guy who always gets your reps and everything. He brings an old school mentality.”

Gordon has also been able to use this NBA hiatus to get his mind right, get additional rest for his knee, and stay ready for a return, assuming there is one. It’s not uncommon for players to seek treatments outside of standard procedures to supplement recovery but he reiterates that rest has been a godsend. It’s extremely difficult to have surgery midseason and attempt to come back, even within the allotted frame. But he believes his injuries are behind him.

“Well, I’m good now,” Gordon says. “There’s really nothing for me to worry about at this point. Whenever we get this thing back going, I don’t have to worry about rehab or anything. So once we get this thing back started, that’d be stuff that I don’t have to worry about at all.”

Before the season was suspended, Houston’s small-ball grade was incomplete. There had been bright spots and dark areas, but the reality of the situation is for such a big leap, they would need all their pieces for an extended period of time to get an honest look at it. Houston’s front office values Gordon quite highly, considering him the best “free agent” acquisition when his return lined up with the trade deadline last season and the same sentiment carries here. They see him as an extremely important piece of the puzzle due to his size, two-way ability, and three-level scoring prowess.

Gordon hasn’t been able to give his best during the transition but knows his role doesn’t change regardless of the system in place. “For me, it doesn’t really change anything,” Gordon believes. “And the thing with me is, with my style of play, it allows other guys to still play their game. I’m not a guy who’s going to take away somebody’s game. I always complement everybody’s game and a lot of people around the league know that. So I can come in again and give you 30, 40 points, and there are games where, based on how we play, I might not get a lot of shots during the game. Well, when I do and when I’m a primary focus I can deliver at any moment. Whether it’s Game 7 in the playoffs in the Western Conference Finals or any regular games.”

One thing he’s learned about himself during this time is he’s able to be honest and unwavering, both in terms of his injury and his own personal growth. Injuries are the one part of sports we can never factor in among all the equations, projections and analytics out there. A player injury to the average fan might come with groans and annoyance at his fantasy team or scoffing at someone’s Basketball Reference Sheet, but there’s a psychological factor that goes unmentioned.

“It’s like when you have surgery and they put a timetable on it,” Gordon explains. “There is just no way that you can say that if you have a knee surgery and they say six weeks, there’s just no way 100 percent that your knee is going to be great in those six weeks of time. When you have a knee surgery, you almost got to double that number. And it makes it even really long when you’re trying to do all this during the season. I think six weeks is a timetable to where you might feel okay, maybe just to throw yourself out there and play. But that’s not the real reason of how you’re gonna feel great every single night to be able to play. There’s a lot of other people who have surgeries out here that are maybe even non-athletes, but then you’ve got to go up against some of the best players in the world and also perform. You’re judged by it”