Is keeping Eric Gordon as a Pelican the right decision for the franchise? Or is it in the best interest of the franchise to move him? The answer may be simple to most as Gordon has seemed to wear out his welcome to Bourbon Street. However, I am going to argue that keeping Eric Gordon on the roster is the right decision for the future of the Pelicans franchise.
First, it is important to start with the premise that the goal of the franchise is to win an NBA championship. With that being said, I believe it is without a doubt that keeping Gordon gives the organization the best chance of achieving that ultimate goal. Personally, I would rather have one championship and nine losing seasons in a ten year span than ten playoff seasons with no title. If you would rather prefer the latter, then I agree that trading Gordon would be the preferred manner of dealing with this delicate situation that must be currently weighing on the mind of Dell Demps. I bring this up because of the injury concerns that have plagued Eric Gordon throughout his short career. The safer move would be to trade Gordon and fill his cap space with lesser players but yet are more reliable to stay on the court. However, NBA is a big boy league where there must be risk involved if you have big dreams.
The NBA is a star-driven league. Fortunately, the Pelicans drafted a superstar in the making last June in Anthony Davis. I expect Davis to be one of the all-time greats when all is said and done but he needs some star power around him. Recent history has shown for the most part that you need multiple stars to have a shot at contending. LeBron got tired of doing it himself and Kevin Durant is not having fun carrying the entire burden without Westbrook in this year’s playoffs. Eventually, Dell has to take a calculated risk to pair Davis with a fellow star. I believe keeping Gordon is the proper risk to take as the potential reward in keeping Gordon substantially outweighs the risk involved in my opinion.
Dell is well aware that Eric Gordon has star talent and thus has invested big money last summer. In a league that fans are calling James Harden, Steph Curry, and Carmelo Anthony superstars, you can make the case that Gordon makes a star impact on the court when healthy. Defense accounts for half the game, even if it is not sexy for fans to applaud great perimeter defense over windmill dunks. What is the old saying? Defense wins championships. Eric Gordon is one of the top perimeter defenders in the league and can guard both guard positions. I believe Dell and Monty’s philosophy is to have two exceptional defensive guards as the makeup of their defensive unit and Eric Gordon fits perfectly into these plans. He is an efficient scorer prior to this year who can get to the rim at ease, has an outside shot that opposing defenses have to respect, and is great at orchestrating the pick and roll game. It is not unreasonable to expect him to average between 22-25 ppg and 4-5 apg to go along with great perimeter defense moving forward if healthy.
Of course, the dooming phrase “if healthy” always pops up with Gordon. It is important to point out that he doesn’t have any health issues that are degenerative that are probable to derail his career. This is how his past injury woes differ from what we have seen from Amare Stoudemire, Brandon Roy, or Andrew Bynum. However, he has had a variety of different injury concerns that may suggest his body might not be able to take the pounding of the physicality of the NBA game especially since his game depends so much on getting to the rim. Therefore, you can certainly make the case that it is possible and even likely that he suffers more injury-plagued years in the future. However, even if you think this is the case, keeping Eric Gordon still gives us the best shot of winning a title as long as he doesn’t have any degenerative health conditions that would diminish his capabilities on the court.
Quite frankly, you need stars to succeed in the NBA. Replacing someone with the talent that Gordon possesses with guys with lesser talent may be able to fill Gordon’s spot production wise on the stat sheet but not the impact he can bring to the game. For example, we have seen guys such as Darren Collison fill Chris Paul’s numbers production-wise on the box score yet not impact-wise on the game itself. Obviously, Eric Gordon is not at Chris Paul’s level but my point has been made that numbers can be misleading in the game of basketball.
I think my point of needing all-star talent has been established (Think Denver Nuggets). I would agree that trading Eric Gordon and replacing him with another all-star with less of an injury risk would be ideal. However, nothing is ideal is the world of running a small-market organization if you have big dreams and that is where my main point lies. Small market franchises alike have not shown any ability of signing free agent stars and there is no star talent to be acquired in this year’s draft for the Pelicans. So if needing a fellow all-star to play alongside Anthony Davis is at least part of the requirement for contention for an NBA championship, then we must ask ourselves the following: Which is more likely, Gordon staying relative healthy or acquiring someone on the same par talent-wise of Gordon? Even if you think Gordon staying healthy only has a 20% probable outcome, it still surpasses the chances of acquiring star-talent in the free agent market for this organization. (Note: The franchise’s best free agent signing ever is considered either Ryan Anderson or a past his prime Peja Stojakovic.) Therefore, in my opinion, by trading Gordon, the franchise will be forfeiting their only hope of any real contention in the Anthony Davis era. Sad? Welcome to the life of rooting for a small market team.
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Originally Posted by R_Ash
