Eric Gordon
by ghost_ride on Oct 1, 2008 11:10 AM PDT
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PrintA burning question I've been pondering this off season is this: What can we expect from Eric Gordon this year, and in the future?
Pretty much everyone felt good about where we drafted Al Thornton last year coming into the season, and his stock only went up as the year went on as he flashed serious athletic ability that we all hope can translate into becoming a main component to a winning team.
Thornton's rookie stats:
27.8 Minutes/Game
12.7 Pts - 4.5 Reb - 1.2 Assists - 1.6 TO
Shooting 42.9 FG%, 33.1 3P%, 74.3%
The numbers don't seem that impressive, but considering he improved as the season went on and looks to have a high ceiling there's a chance he could break out in his 2nd year.
Where does that leave Eric Gordon? A higher draft pick, he's got a more distinguished basketball pedigree being a top recruit out of Indiana, though with a growing injury history and tumult in Hoosier land during his only college season, his ability to become a good pro is in doubt. If he can stay relatively healthy, we'd like to see him be a scoring threat and a solid defender off the bench, but his numbers for this coming season, for various reasons are likely to be about half of what Thornton put up last year.
We have a good idea of the talent we have at PG, PF/C for the next couple of seasons. What we get out of Al & Eric is the big key to our present and future. Right now, there is reason for cautious optimism, but we just have to see how it plays out. I hear Gordon's status is day to day with a minor ankle injury after the first day of camp.
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Ankle sprains
Let’s hope that this is, indeed, minor and of the day-to-day variety.
5 to 10 days
Gordon will be out 5 to 10 days with the ankle injury according to Dunleavy, via Ramona the Pest (I wonder if she’ll mind me calling her that? See, she pesters MDsr and others for answers to questions so we don’t have to. It’s a good thing Ramona!)
This is unfortunate. I don’t want to overreact, but it often seems that injury-prone seasons begin with nagging injuries in training camp. Not to mention that for a 19 year old rookie still carrying some baby fat from the looks of him, those missed days of conditioning are going to be significant. The good news is that he had already lost weight this summer – he came into camp about 8 pounds lighter, which is a sign that he’s taking this seriously.
Anyway, here’s hoping that it’s just a simple turned ankle, that the Clippers are being cautious, that he’s back in practice in a week and that everything goes well from there. No one’s sure how much he can contribute this season, but let’s hope that things like this don’t become a limiting factor to those contributions.
In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. - Elwood P. Dowd
Dreaded High Ankle Sprain
I like this Ramona Shelburne. How long has she been doing this? The Pest, and we mean that in a good way.
She tells us that the Heat are hours away from making a deal for Liv—which is fine, and a good spot for him—but much more importantly says that Gordon’s ankle sprain is the real deal, the infamous “high ankle sprain.”
Basically, you turn your ankle like any average guy, it swells up if you don’t put ice on it, the ankle comes back pretty quick, and the problem is getting rid of the stiffness from the swelling. But when you really come down on it in a bad way, “higher up” somehow, you’ve sprained your ankle much worse. It’s not broken, but you don’t see a lot of broken ankles. You see some very bad sprains, and those are all “high ankle sprains.”
They’re saying one-two weeks. I’m saying three, and a slow return back at that point. He’s on crutches. Missing training camp and most of the preseason, maybe appearing in the last game or two, but not at full speed. But he’ll be ready for the regular season.
It’s really too bad, because he definitely could have used the preseason run and everything else, not to mention getting accustomed to his teammates. The only silver lining I can see is that maybe Steve Novak gets a few more shots and minutes in the preseason as the designated gunner. And a slow start for Gordon isn’t the worst thing, with the tough early schedule, but it would have been good to get some bugs out in the preseason and for him to have been tuned up, available, and ready to go.
Right...
On the brighter side, he was apparently off of crutches yesterday and is intent on being a good study, so he seems to have the right frame of mind…now we just have to hope it’s on the mild side for a “high ankle sprain”, and he doesn’t reinjured it later.
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