There was no denying the noise surrounding the Magic’s surprising signing of Ben Gordon. Even the Magic’s pro-team broadcast acknowledged there was a lot of head scratching over the signing and the risk that came with it.
Here was a player who had a bad reputation around the league after a turbulent season in Charlotte that saw him relegated to deep on the bench and then eventually cut with little fanfare. Gordon may not have signed anywhere else in the NBA and so the two-year, $9 million deal Gordon received shocked everyone.
In fairness to the signing, it was a low-risk one. Gordon has only this year guaranteed and it helped the Magic reach the salary floor. The second year of his deal is completely non-guaranteed. The Magic hoped he could add a veteran presence in the locker room and maybe recapture some of the spark he had off the bench from his Chicago days.
“He’s still hungry,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said during the Raptors’ stop in Orlando in November. “It shows he is a great NBA player. I don’t know what happened the last couple years. he wasn’t the Ben Gordon we remember from Chicago and a few years ago. But he is back to that form now. He is scoring at a very high level. Any way you want to score, in pick and roll, in transition, attacking the basket.”
Getting all the way back to averaging 21.4 points per game in 2006 and his big Playoff performance in 2009 is a big ask. Gordon just has to be serviceable on both ends of the floor and make shots when he was left open. Judging by his 37.6 percent shooting from beyond the arc the past two years, that was hardly a guarantee.
Ben Gordon is posting his best field goal percentage of his career so far this season. Photo by Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
He needed to reclaim his career this year. Or else, he would see it come to something of a premature end.
And so far, Gordon has played well. Much better than everyone expected and perhaps enough to make his signing seem like a shrewd move (maybe we will not go that far, Gordon is getting paid quite a bit and the Magic probably bid against themselves some to ensure they received his services).
Gordon is averaging 7.6 points per game and is shooting 48.2 percent from the floor, his highest of his career. Gordon is averaging 17.2 points per 36 minutes. He has made the most of his opportunity so far.
“Just looking to reestablish myself,” Gordon said during Media Day. “I didn’t play a lot last season. I’m just looking to re-establish myself and help this team win games. Bring that scoring punch, bring that shooting punch the Magic need and do what I do best which is score the basketball and make big plays on the offensive end and just have fun playing.”
It definitely looks like Gordon is having more fun. He is back to taking and making impossible shots and being that offensive spark.
That does not guarantee much for his future. Gordon is not all the way back. He has been put into difficult shot situations and has made them regularly, but no one is expecting him to hit 20 points on a consistent basis like he did before off the bench. And, statistically, Gordon is still posting a negative victories over a replacement player.
It is still hard to quantify exactly whether the Gordon investment is a good one. It just is not as bad as what fans may have been clamoring over when the contract was signed. Gordon has proven to be fine for what he is.
Then there is the other aspect of his signing. The ubiquitous and intangible “veteran leadership.”
That was no doubt part of the equation in his signing. Both assistant general managers Matt Lloyd and Scott Perry have experience working with Gordon from their previous stints with Detroit and Chicago. They knew that Gordon could contribute on the floor at least some and could be a good example in the locker room. It appeared the stories coming from Charlotte were not the Gordon these guys knew.
They had a different picture of Gordon and that was one of a guy who would work hard and be a good example behind the scenes.
“Just his work ethic,” Rob Hennigan said on Media Day when asked about Ben Gordon. “Ben is a gym rat. He’s in here every night basically until midnight getting shots up. His desire to be int he gym and continue to hone his craft is something that we want to be about and something we want our players to see and our players to be about. One thing that really sticks out about Ben this summer is how much time he has put in and spent working on his game.”
Gordon certainly put in the time. He noted in an interview with Dante Marchitelli following Friday’s win in Utah that he hoped to set an example behind the scenes in the way he prepares and goes about his business. He told Dante that the younger players have already come up to him to ask why he did certain things.
Ben Gordon is not a “rah-rah” kind of guy. That much is for sure. He surely has his own motivations for playing too. He has to prove that he still has a place in this league. Through the first quarter of the season, it looks like Gordon has proven that.
