There is no doubt Eric Gordon is having an absolutely abysmal start to the New Orleans Pelicans Seasons. After talking to various people both inside and outside the Pelicans organization, there is a prevailing theory that his lack of touches is a major factor in his dwindling stat line. When told that I thought, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.” But is it really? I dove into the numbers.
It’s true Gordon is less of a focal point in this Pelicans offense. He is sporting a usage rate of 15.9% compared to 23.2% a year ago. It’s around an 8% drop. Yet Gordon is averaging 5.8 points per game after putting up 15.4 last season. That’s a loss of 62% worth of production. All of those numbers aren’t exactly in line with what the expectations would be. Overall his stats haven’t taken such a dramatic drop as that. Though, it’s worth noting that Gordon is getting to the line less than he has ever in his career.
Digging further, the NBA.com/stats page player tracking data yields similar trends. Gordon’s touches in the front court (on offense, basically) are down 44%. His time of possession with the ball in his hands per game is down 43%. Scoring-wise, Gordon’s points per half court touch is down 43%. So there is some credence to people saying he hasn’t been getting touches/usage/involvement.
And that’s where this becomes a catch-22.
If the way for Gordon to improve his stat line is to shoot more, or be a larger focal point of the offense, as is implied by people saying he hasn’t gotten touches so don’t expect good numbers, then the Pelicans’ offense will struggle until Gordon gets out of his slump.
Gordon is shooting a woeful 20.6% from the field and an even grimmer 9.1% from behind the arc. When he does get to the line, Gordon is only making his free throws at a 72.7% clip for a total True Shooting Percentage of 29.6%. I can’t even begin to describe how bad that is, and I don’t want to, just trust me that it’s eye-bursting bad, and it contributes to his -0.5 PER.
As a team the Pelicans have struggled with shooting at times. However they have largely taken good, open, shots. The ball just hasn’t found the net. It’s early in the season and the shots will start consistently getting made with time. On the other hand, Gordon has taken 38.2% of his shots in ‘tight’ situations (defenders within 4 feet) according to NBA.com/stats. Until he gets out of this funk having plays drawn up for Gordon just doesn’t make sense.
Shooting his way out of it through more attempts just isn’t viable if the Pelicans want to win basketball games.
But Usage Percent largely focuses on how the play ends. It doesn’t factor in off ball contributions. So, does Gordon help there? Not really. Gordon averages 16.3 passes per game with 3 assist opportunities per game. It leads to a total of 2 points created by assists per game. That’s down from 23.8 passes, 6.3 assist opportunities and 7.2 points created by assists last season. Simply put: 0.8 assists and 0.8 secondary assists aren’t getting it done.
Gordon can turn his season around. I mean, we’re only 4 games into it so far. And odds are he will. It’s tough to keep shooting percentages that low for an entire season. They will start to move up towards his career averages sooner rather than later. When that happens Gordon’s points per game will increase.
But that can’t happen by taking more shots. There is only one ball to go around in a starting lineup of Jrue Holiday, Gordon, Tyreke Evans, Anthony Davis, and Omer Asik. Gordon’s touches and usage rate hasn’t decreased because he has played poorly; it’s gone down because he’s the odd man out in the starting lineup. Who do you take shots away from so Gordon can take more? This is Anthony Davis’ team now and Gordon has become a complementary part of it.
Gordon needs to embrace this new role and become a more efficient player. Otherwise he risks falling down the rotation. Move into open space instead of just standing around on the weakside. Work on becoming more consistent as a spot up deep threat to help space the court. This doesn’t just fall on the shoulders of Gordon; this is on Monty Williams and the coaching staff, too. They seem to have decided on Gordon’s role and need to help him succeed in it. Luckily, it’s only 4 games into the season. There is still time.
7 responses to “The New Normal For Eric Gordon”
Love the analysis; it’s four games in and we have a huge Gordon problem.
Where I disagree is Gordon’s position as a starter being so firm in Monty’s mind or anyone else’s, and that Gordon can become a efficient scorer. I believe Gordon is a volume scorer not an efficient scorer, and I have seen no evidence of efficient scoring from Gordon. This season, Gordon has been the most inefficient scorer out of all starters in the NBA!!! This is another reason why Gordon has to go to the 2nd team.
The best way to get Gordon more touches is to play him with the second team. On that 2nd team, Anderson is a shooter, spot up or off the dribble, and Gordon is a spot up shooter or driver. Ajinca, when we reduces his fouling, will be a mid range shooter, rebounder, and finisher of lob passes. Rivers, when he plays with them has an offensive role similar to Gordon’s. Jimmer, when he plays, is more of a spot up shooter. (The SF spot is still in flux with that group as it is with the starters.)
Playing Gordon with the 2nd team also lessens the pressure on his meager defensive ability. That is a huge positive for the team and leaves Gordon with more energy for offense.
I believe it’s just a question of time before the ‘Gordon to the 2nd team’ experiment happens.
PER to date
Anthony Davis 34.06
Omer Asik 20.37
Ryan Anderson 18.00
Jrue Holliday 17.87
Tyreke Evans 16.56
Austin Rivers 15.44
——-League Average 15.00——–
Eric Gordon -0.60
Jimmer Fredette -4.32
JohnRPage Only reason Jimmer’s is that low is that there is a league wide conspiracy against him. Haven’t you heard?
Great article! Just yesterday, I was asking myself Why and How come Gordon has started the season so bad. This was his first season in New Orleans before which He was active for the entire training camp. He was saying He feels good and ready. He was giving hope that He would be one of our offensive threats, etc etc. So, there was this hype that Gordon was gonna play great. At least I was feeling that hype, so much that I was hoping his good play would either caught the eye of some other GM’s for a trade this season or make him realize that he needs to opt-out of his contract and pursue a longer but heftier one than his remaining 1-year 15 million 15-16 season with Pelicans.
Anyways, back to my original question: Why Gordon looks so bad on the court? He was not that bad against Orlando. He took 4 rebounds! That’s impressive by Gordon, right? 🙂 Then, He stayed 34 minutes on the court against Dallas and scored 0 points! Worse than that, at some point in the second half I looked at the stats on the big screen above the middle of the court and guess what?
E. Gordon 0 0 0 0 0 1. What was that 1? Oh yes, PF. I was shocked. Think of a player who stayed on the court for so many minutes and he has not contributed to any stats. OK, he can miss all his shots by that point, but no rebound, no asist, no steal, no block? Really?
Now, that’s frustrating on multiple angles. Why would the coach keep such an inefficient player for that many minutes on the court? Yes, he did, and guess what Gordon was so hesitant to take another shot, he couldn’t shoot, he couldn’t pass and he threw the ball out of bounds in one of the most important possessions at the end of then game. The score was 107-103 for Dallas. That was Gordon’s last play of the night. He is a professional basketball player with so much talent and who am I to judge him like the following but I unfortunately have to say this: That really looked miserable to me.
Then came Memphis game. Redemption Time! And Gordon delivered, He scored 11, grabbed 8(!!) rebounds. Might have gone unnoticed by many but that matched his CAREER HIGH! Now, that’s really impressive. If he can make such contributions all season long, that is great. But still He shot 28% from the field with 5 missed 3 point shots. Not good. Well, the entire team was shooting bad that night. 34% overall FG% to give an idea how bad it was.
Finally, the Bobcats game. The Bobcats game was an eye opener. For what? To see How Austin Rivers might perform better than Gordon. I knew that He could. But, He has not shown consistency. Yet! Gordon could not make a single FG again, but this time He scored 4 points from the line. Rivers? 5 of 9 from the field and ended the game with a nice 12-5-3-1-1 line. That’s good. But, is his play good enough to put Rivers out against the starters of opposing teams, I am not sure. So, I would keep Gordon in the starting lineup but reduce his minutes. Also, I would give more chance to Asik-Davis-Anderson-Evans-Holiday lineup You guys forgot to put that in the active most recent poll that you have on site, so I cannot vote. Too bad. 🙂
Let’s get back to Gordon analysis. So, after seeing a handful of bad games from Gordon. I started to question why He got the maximum contract from us. I quickly remembered the Jazz game that He singlehandedly dominated and won before his previous conract expired. I checked the stats of that season and guess what He comes back from the injury and He scores 31 against San Antonio on his second game back. He then scores 25 against Jazz after taking 2 games off. The next week He scores 27 against Houston. This guy is good, He can score. Well, of course He can if you let him use the ball that much. He takes 19-18-18 FGA’s at those 3 games also goes to the line for 8-4-10 times respectively. Hmm? Who was playing next to him? Vasquez, Aminu, Smith, Kaman. A-HA! No question Gordon is the leader of that team, talent-wise, intensity-wise, scoring-wise, etc.
Then, I was like, well Demps did not give him the max contract just because of the 7 games that He played in April 2012. BTW, He averaged 20.4 PT, 2.1 REB, 3.9 AST, 1.3 STL %46FG, %32 3PT in those 7 games. How about Clippers? Gordon must have played so well for the Clippers that He made it to the 2010 Team USA that competed in FIBA World Basketball Championship in Turkey.
Before the injury that kept him out for 2 months in early 2012, Gordon’s stats for the first 2.5 months of 2011-2012 season is very very impressive. Check them out: http://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/3431/year/2011/eric-gordon
Yet again his usage rate mudt be very high. 17-18 FGA per game and 6-10 FTA per game. He was one of the focal points of the Clippers offense if not THE focal point because most of those games He took the most shots for the Clippers.
But, unfortunately that’s not possible with the Pelicans now. Gordon is surrounded by (actually Davis is surrounded by) players who all can use the ball a lot, but who needs to learn how to effectively share the ball. Gordon needs to figure out being a part of this offense. At times Holiday will initiate offense, at times Evans will initiate offense, and at time Gordon should initiate offense. He’s gotta be effective and efficient in doing so. Attacking the basket to get a foul call and get the ball stripped out on layup attempts won;t cut it anymore because the team does not heavily depend on Gordon anymore and cannot accept such plays/misses. If he can do this, that’s great. If not? I agree with Jake and I had said it even before the season started. GORDON IS THE ODD MAN OUT!
Michael McNamara JohnRPage why such a simple joke made me laugh so hard…!
Good thing its only been 4 games and there is no way those percentages last for more that 6 games without a huge improvement…(I know, a 100% would still be less than average). Remember the atrocious Rivers rookie year? We would have been ROY competing against this 4 game Gordon!
EG phone home…. ouch