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And this is the centerpiece of your big trade for Chris Paul??? Yikes! No thank you!As opposed to Kevin Martin?
A healthy Gordon fits the +6 paradigm that I mentioned in my Hornets season preview perfectly, especially in the sense the Hornets appear to be building. Even if he doesn't develop into an elite, All-Star starter type scorer, he's almost certainly a strong secondary scorer already.
Last season, Gordon produced 112 points/100 possessions, a differential of +4.7 from league average, over 20% of total team possessions. Over a full season, that comes out to (+4.7 x 20%) a +0.94 on the +6 scale. A healthy Gordon's offense, assuming zero improvement, takes you a sixth of the way to a title. These players aren't as rare as the Chris Paul's and Dwight Howard's of the NBA, but they're certainly critical building blocks. And in this current Hornets' setup, where at least a +3 or +4 defense along the lines of the team's peak a year ago is the ultimate goal, that offensive +2 to +3 juggernaut (Paul, LeBron, Dirk Nowitzki, Durant) is less necessary.
Eric Gordon the Defender
I'm more excited by Eric Gordon, the defender, than I am by Eric Gordon, the scorer. This was, a year ago, a chillingly strong individual defensive player on the perimeter.
Gordon's strongest aspect of isolation defense was his hands. Opponents turned the ball over to Gordon on almost 25% of the 97 instances that he was isolated defensively. Gordon's a gambler in this sense, but in a very different fashion than we, as Hornets fans, have been accustomed to. Where Chris Paul gambled for steals at the expense of penetration, Eric Gordon very rarely swiped unless he was completely set in front of an offensive player and able to react laterally if he missed. His gambling came more in the form of personal fouls; while his overall foul count (2.3 pf/36 minutes) was tiny, the majority of his more egregious fouls came in this setting. Ultimately, Gordon's rate of a foul and a half per steal was a tradeoff worth making, even if it's worth keeping an eye on in late shot clock situations going forward.
As with everything defensive, it all starts with foot speed, evident here against Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. He shifts Nash towards one side, presumably the one from which help is scheduled to arrive, but even when it doesn't, he's easily able to keep Nash away from the rim. Follow that up with one of my favorite defensive sequences by any player ever.
When he was healthy last season, Gordon routinely matched up against the best opposing perimeter players - Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Martin, Monta Ellis and so forth. Gordon was as close to becoming a lockdown, first choice perimeter defender last season as he was a top-level scoring option. In isolation situations, opponents shot 15 for 60 (25%) and in spot-up scenarios, they shot 47-161 (29%).
And that's what makes the 2012-2014 New Orleans Hornets so damn intriguing defensively if they can land a game changing big in the draft. In Gordon and Trevor Ariza, the Hornets potentially have two lock-down perimeter defenders in the starting lineup. If they can pair Emeka Okafor with a strong defensive presence this summer? That currently impossible looking jump to +6 suddenly becomes a lot more realistic. Jarrett Jack, sizable enough to be switched off regularly, can easily be hidden in the presence of two elite isolation defenders.
Eric Gordon the defender is equally as valuable as Eric Gordon the scorer; for players seeking max deals coming off rookie contracts, it's a rare trait.
So What, then, is Eric Gordon Worth?
The answer to this question, minus injury, is definitely the maximum.
Each marginal win in the NBA, over replacement level is worth about $2.2M. Last year, Gordon's produced somewhere between 5 and 6 wins - 5.3 by Basketball Reference's WS metric and 5.7 by Basketball Prospectus' WARP statistic. Propagating those numbers out to a full season puts him somewhere around 8 wins above a replacement level player. So assuming Gordon's development as a player stalls at this point (unlikely), he'd be worth somewhere in the region of $17M to $18M. And I'd contend this would be undervaluing and underpaying him for his true defensive impact.
A four-year max contract would pay Gordon $16M a year, below value at full health. If Eric Gordon returns to the Hornets this season and plays well, Indiana will, without a shadow of a doubt, throw a full maximum deal at him over the off-season. Other teams like Cleveland will have this opportunity as well. Assuming Gordon would want to stay in New Orleans long term, the Hornets have matching rights, and the suitors themselves wouldn't be an issue as much as the loss of contract value to the team.
Small market teams need to maximize their wins per dollar above all else; a superstar player is vital not just for his talent but because the NBA salary scale prevents superstars from earning true market value. LeBron James and Chris Paul regularly outperformed their maximum contracts for Cleveland and New Orleans, and it allowed both franchises to (theoretically) spend the money they didn't need to pay for additional wins created by James and Paul on additional talent.
Eric Gordon, for all his talents, isn't in that class. Could he grow into it? Sure. For now, even if a max contract might fairly approximate his value at full health, Gordon represents a significantly lower chance of "free" wins above and beyond his yearly contract. It's why the NBA's initial stance in disallowing Dell Demps from working on an extension with Gordon was so disheartening - it forced a sort of lose-lose. If Gordon came back and played excellently, the Hornets would be forced to pay market value. If Gordon came back and played poorly, it would be an entirely different sort of failure.
Of course, the third possibility also implies the existence of a significantly less pleasant fourth option - paying tens of millions of dollars a year to a player that can't play any more, and it's up to the medical staff to determine Gordon's long term injury prognosis. But yesterday's news, an independent New York doctor calling his knee "structurally sound," was a clear step forward.
If the Hornets have ultimately determined that Gordon's knee will present no long term issues, a prerequisite, one might imagine, for any sort of contract extension offer, that it'd be no problem to stretch to the maximum. IIt's the only reason why the team pushed for an extension yesterday to try and get him for below that value (probably around 4 years and $50 million). Even with Gordon arguably worth the max, the team ultimately owns matching rights this summer. If Gordon's camp sticks firmly to the max, they'll still be able to receive it after the Pacers (or someone else) officially put it forward in the summer.
As it stands if they lose Gordon, the Stern deal will be judged to be a disaster. If NO keeps Gordon and he ends up being injured all the time, the trade is a disaster for NO.I'm overcome with joy everytime I talk Hornets basketball with people. I mean I guess you could be as pessimistic as possible but what if New Orleans keeps Eric Gordon and he produces at the rate he did last season for the next four years as he's paired with an elite big drafted in June (a player that doesn't "go to New Orleans.")? Jesus the glass is always half empty with you people when it comes to New Orleans. Always.
If the Hornets can nab Davis or Drummond (I prefer the former) with their own pick (hopefully I didn't jinx it) and then someone like Kidd-Gilchrist with the Minnesota pick depending on where the T-Wolves finish (I feel obligated to mention him as a honorary member of the Church of Gilchrist) they'll be well on their way to a successful rebuild (maybe they package Aminu with the Minn pick and move up to take MKG). A core of Gordon, Davis, and Gilchrist would be a damn good building block, and dare I say would present an attractive investment for a potential buyer. It was the right choice for NO, even though they didn't make it..I'm definitely on team Anthony Davis if that's to happen. Some people on the Hornets forums want the team to take Jared Sullinger because he's the better prospect immediately (which is a horrible way to draft, I keep trying to explain) and that's got a growing sentiment because teams see how hard the Hornets are playing and don't think they're too far away from being a playoff team. There's some truth to that but, as unrealistic as it may be, the organization still has to try and put forth a championship team. And there's a huge difference between a championship and a playoff team. Which goes directly back to my preferring the Clippers package over the one the Hornets would have received from the Lakers and Rockets. As for Minnesota's pick, we all pretty much predicted Minnesota would take a huge step forward just by basis of removing Rambis (a hire that I never liked and was ripped for openly hating it before), a bottom ten coach in the league, for Adelman, arguably a top ten coach in the league. But all you need is a horse in the race for the lottery. You just have to get in. So hopefully the Timberwolves hit a rough spot, miss the postseason and the Hornets still get a top ten pick out of it.
The veto had everything to do with owners like Gilbert and Cuban, as well as new owners, fearing another superteam on the Lakers specifically and threatening Stern behind closed doors not to undermine the alleged reason we had a lockout (competitive balance/no more superteams, though the main reason for the lockout was clearly just to put more money in the owners pockets). The simple fact is small market owners don't want to see Heat/Lakers every year, despite the fact those two teams along with the Celtics and Knicks are the franchises that make the NBA prosper. Sad, but true. My displeasure with what transpired has to do with sackless Stern using the asinine "basketball reasons" to shield the truth: that the reason the deal wasn't consumated is because it was the Lakers, and because they had the potential to land Howard as well. If you don't believe that you're a fool. It ended up better for NO long term, but that doesn't make the reasoning and ruling behind the vetoed deal any less unjust..There's no doubt the move was vetoed just because Chris Paul was headed to the Lakers. The veto would have received less criticism, in my humble opinion, had Stern never given the basketball reasons argument or anything like that. But he did, the move was criticized, and I don't know how many more times I can talka bout it. That was an exhausting week for me as a Hornets fans honestly. I posted another article the day of the extension deadline covering this too in that Stern seems to be OK with the team handling minor moves but when it comes to the star players, he tries to interject himself into the discussions and that bothers me to absolutely no end. In fact, he didn't give the Hornets the OK for an extension until 22 hours before the deadline. Had they really been pushing to get the deal done, it's very possible that the two sides could have come to an agreement. But we'll never know, I suppose.
Assuming conditions do not change, contract negotiations have two aspects that impact outcome: terms & emotion. Based solely on terms, your analysis is spot-on. And Lebron is still playing in Cleveland. Unfortunately, especially with some young men, egos can often impact outcome in NBA contract negotiations.No doubt. I have a suspicion, that I really never talk about because I'm so paranoid, that Eric Gordon dislikes New Orleans so much that he wants to leave. I don't get it (New Orleans is an awesome city!) but it seems to be a growing sentiment amongst players around the league to head to the same places; like good weather cities, big market cities, etc. Thankfully, Indiana is not one of those either so my paranoia doesn't go insane in that regard. I figure that's going to be the Hornets' biggest bidding opponent this offseason for Gordon. I still expect him to stay but, like you said, I'd much rather have him under contract. I was championing the contract the whole time. At the same time, I understand why Dell Demps did what he did. Essentially, the only reason to engage in contract extension talks is to get kind of a good discount (Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari) and build your team going forward. If your plan all along is to give him the maximum deal, I don't see the big rush in doing it. Why not let the market dictate how much you'll pay (especially when a max deal Gordon signs with any other team would be less than a max deal he'd sign with the Hornets). I never understood the rush for the Thunder to sign Russell Westbrook and sign him for so much money (it's arguable that he's worth it) but, then again, he's been such a PR disaster with them that him heading to free agency would have been made a huge deal by the parasites that work in the national media.
My bet is Gordon stays taking the max or near-max deal. But so much is unknown in these deals and what truly goes on behind closed doors that the future is anything but certain. And ego is the the ultimate unknown.Yeah there's almost no chance that the front office lets Gordon go. The negative light this would paint on the team locally would be very disheartening. They've all kind of sided against Eric Gordon locally but that could change if the team seems to be moving at a glacial pace to get better. They don't have to be in the playoffs again or anything but the city of New Orleans just, unfortunately, doesn't support this team nearly enough for them to withstand multiple last place seasons. They're barely hanging on this year. So in that regard, retaining Gordon is a must for the franchise, at least as a selling point for improvement.
The board still has some great opinions on it so long as you don't really talk too much about the Lakers, Heat or Celtics. I try to involved myself in some of those dicussions but they're just too much for me. I side with the Lakers a lot and when I do I'm called blind and the few times that I criticize I'm called a hater by certain Laker fans. So I just keep my opinion to myself more often than not; unless it's too insane that I just have to say something (like that one guy who said the Lakers would completely miss the postseason). But this thread has been a breath of fresh air and that's why I've dedicated a good amount of time on here to everyone's responses.
One more thing: Kudos to your analysis and passion for stating the truth. All the people on this thread are awesome and offer up opinon without hyperbole; how refreshing.
