- January 19th, 2006, 11:21 am
#629
To be honest, I never made the connection between Former LU guard Eric Gordon and the Eric Gordon in Indianapolis who is one of the top high school guards in the Class of 2006. But here's a good read from the Indy fishwrap:
I assume if we aren't already all over the younger boys, we need to commence recruiting them immediately.
TONIGHT ON ESPN2: LAWRENCE NORTH AT NORTH CENTRAL
Give him his due
Often overshadowed by Wildcats' Oden, Panthers' Gordon gets his national TV shot
By Jeff Rabjohns
jeff.rabjohns@indystar.com
It's early Saturday afternoon, and the fast-food bags are spread out on the kitchen counter. Eric Gordon, the oldest of three boys, already has been to practice. Evan, 14, already had a game. Eron, 8, is getting ready for a practice.
"It's another basketball Saturday," Eric Gordon Sr. says, smiling at his trio.
The scene is typical Hoosier, one that plays out in thousands of households each weekend across a basketball-mad state. The eldest son, though, is anything but ordinary.
The North Central High School junior, nicknamed "E.J." for Eric Jr., is considered the best shooting guard in his class, a status no longer even debated after a stellar summer against the rest of the top players in the nation. Tonight he gets his first chance to prove that to a national television audience as the Panthers host Greg Oden and Lawrence North on ESPN2.
In Illinois, they know all about Gordon. His oral commitment to the Illini prompted Champaign News-Gazette columnist Loren Tate, who has been around Illinois athletics since the 1950s, to call Gordon the best recruit in school history. Anticipation of his arrival in the fall of 2007 is so great that several hundred Illinois fans drove to Indianapolis to watch him play in a tournament in December.
In his hometown, though, he hasn't always gotten the attention his talent warrants, the curse of coming along at the same time as Oden, the 7-foot reigning national Player of the Year. Josh McRoberts, now starting for top-ranked Duke as a freshman, suffered a similar fate during his final two seasons at Carmel.
But make no mistake, national talent scout Dave Telep said. Gordon is special.
A starter since his freshman year at a perennial Class 4A power, Gordon is averaging 25.5 points per game this season -- shooting 52 percent from the field and 86 percent from the free throw line -- to go with 3.6 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.2 blocks.
"When he first made his mark, it was as an athletic kid who could shoot the basketball, but his game is a lot more well-rounded now," said Telep, who works for scout.com. "He can create for himself and others off the drive. He can finish. And he's always been able to stick the shot from deep."
Gordon's game has grown through hundreds of these basketball Saturdays, and from constantly being selected to play "up" -- against older players, the best around.
When he was 5, he played on a 7- and 8-year-old team. The past two summers, he was on the same team with Oden, Lawrence North point guard Mike Conley and Dayton (Ohio) Dunbar's Daequan Cook, all one year older and headed to Ohio State. Two summers ago, McRoberts was on the team, too.
"It matured my game at a higher level than other kids my age," Gordon said.
Interestingly, his improvement also can be attributed to his father's greatest failing.
All off the dribble
Eric Gordon Sr., also a North Central basketball standout, played college basketball at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., from 1981-84 in the same conference as Jerome Kersey and Charles Oakley. Two years in a row, Gordon Sr., a 6-2 swingman, finished second by one vote for conference MVP to Kersey, who played 17 years in the NBA.
"I can dribble better now than I could in college," Gordon Sr., 44, said. "If I would have spent more time on dribbling and other aspects, I would be retiring from the NBA because I was athletic and I could score.
"But the game's 94 feet. If you trapped me, I'd throw the ball away."
With that in mind, Gordon Sr. had a plan for young Eric. Coaching his son from third grade through seventh grade in summer leagues, Gordon Sr. made sure Eric didn't lean on shooting. At all.
"All he did was dribble and pass," Gordon Sr. said. "No shots. When I coached him, I didn't want him to shoot a single shot other than a layup."
Dad eventually allowed him to shoot, of course, but the focus remained on learning more than scoring. That's why his father encouraged him to play against older players -- and the son had the talent to do it. He learned to play at a faster pace, to pass into the post, to defend bigger, older players. He gained a fearlessness and ferociousness along the way.
"I just listened to a lot of different people, and playing in AAU and high school, I tried to take things from different players," Gordon said. "For my position, playing a combo guard, they wanted me to play a complete game. I kept experimenting in all those games and kept working at it."
It hasn't all been competitive. His parents also insisted on keeping the game fun.
For all of Eric Jr.'s life the family has lived on Hoover Road on the Northside, across from the Jewish Community Center, where he has played in pickup games for years. When he's not playing against his father and the other top players, he's with kids at the other end of the court, organizing games, even occasionally officiating.
The family could have moved but chose to remain where basketball was only a walk across the street.
Denise Gordon, a Bahamas native who met Eric Sr. at Liberty, laughs at the memories of her eldest son's early days.
"When he was very young, his dad would take him to the JCC and it was dribble, dribble, dribble," she said.
No more.
This is now
Gordon, who turned 17 on Christmas Day, has grown into the basketball body and athleticism coaches and scouts love.
At 6-4 and a chiseled 208 pounds, he's explosive, both horizontally and vertically. He can grab a rebound and go coast-to-coast. He can bust a zone with NBA-range 3-pointers. He can blow by a defender and soar for a thunderous dunk.
"He's got the total package," North Central coach Doug Mitchell said. "He's an extremely competitive person. He's 6-4, extremely powerful, extremely quick.
"He's worked so hard on his game. He's a great shooter. It's so hard to take any one thing away without him punishing you in another area."
Even playing alongside Oden, Conley and Cook on Spiece Indy Heat, Gordon stood out. He was so impressive in July at the Las Vegas Big Time Tournament, considered the summer national championship, that Spiece coach Mike Conley Sr. gave him the tournament title trophy.
"He's a prolific scorer, especially down the stretch of a game," Conley Sr. said. "He's one of the purest shooters I've seen and has such athletic ability to go with his shooting.
"The thing that impresses me the most is, he can play defense and he plays hard from the time he steps on the court until the time he goes to the bench. Sometimes kids that talented, especially scorers, don't play that hard. E.J., he's after it from the time he touches the floor."
Revenge tonight?
Among Gordon's college suitors were in-state schools Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame, but he narrowed his choices to Illinois and Duke, then settled on the Illini during the fall. That the campus was less than a two-hour drive was important, but more so was how guard Deron Williams and Luther Head led Illinois to the Final Four last spring and then went on to be first-round NBA draft picks.
Illinois coach Bruce Weber sold Gordon on the idea that he would develop along the same lines.
"Coach Weber thinks I could be the best guard that's ever been there, the best guard he's ever coached," Gordon said. "They had two guys last year go to the NBA, two guys I thought were the best at their position.
"With coach Weber saying that, I take it as a compliment."
Some stories about Gordon have even mentioned Carmelo Anthony, who led Syracuse to the national title as a freshman before jumping to the NBA. The buzz about Gordon has gotten so loud that scouts are trying to rein it in.
"We're talking about a kid still in the developmental stages," Telep said.
Nonetheless, close to home the overshadowing continues.
Last Saturday in the title game of the Marion County Tournament, Gordon was plagued by fouls and had an off game, scoring 20 points on 5-for-14 shooting in a 78-55 loss to Lawrence North. Adding insult, a blurb in this week's Sports Illustrated promoting tonight's game erroneously said Mitchell "calls his star center 'the best shot blocker I've seen since Bill Russell' " -- obviously referring to Oden.
Gordon says he's ready for a rematch with his summer teammates.
"I've played against them more than I've played with them," Gordon said. "You're friends, but when you're on the court, you're enemies and everybody plays hard and plays to win."
VINTAGE "E.J."http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /601190440
• In last season's sectional title game, Eric Gordon scored 21 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter to lead North Central to a stunning 60-53 comeback victory over Josh McRoberts-led Carmel.
• In a May 1 game in Fort Wayne, Ind., Gordon went head-to-head with O.J. Mayo, and forced the No. 1-ranked player in the Class of 2007 into missing his first seven shots. Gordon scored 16 points, including 10 during a decisive run in Indy Spiece's 77-58 win. Mayo finished with 27 points, but most came after the result was decided.
• At the Las Vegas Big Time Tournament in July, Gordon tied for game-high honors with 18 points as Spiece beat Mayo's DI Greyhounds 73-68 to become the first repeat winners of what is considered the summer national championship.
I assume if we aren't already all over the younger boys, we need to commence recruiting them immediately.
did you miss me?? lol
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