I guess we have to ask whether or not it would be worth it to sit him out a few extra games with the possibility of dropping a seed or two to have him healthy come playoff time. The alternative is to keep playing him like we have and pray for the best.
He's a high-risk, high-reward guy to roster and rely on. His injury history means that you can get a guy who performs like an $18 million player for $13 million. But you have to deal with him randomly missing 15 games and never knowing where he'll be at year's end. In my opinion, you have to take such a risk if you want to beat established superteams. To beat a superteam you have three options. Fire with fire (very difficult), value shopping (including on injury risks), or trying to exploit a specific weakness of a specific team (may work against one team, but hard to win four series this way). The Rockets tried fire with fire and failed because they were a fairly undesirable destination after last year. They rebounded with some great value shopping. If they were to spend Gordon's salary on a more reliable, healthy player they'd have gotten someone like Jeremy Lin or Austin Rivers or Matthew Dellevedova, all of whom commanded similar contracts without nearly the upside for their teams that Gordon has.
I just wish he was missing the next game and not tonight's. Phoenix coming into town on a B2B with less than 24 hours between tipoffs is the kind of game where we can afford to rest him.
Gordon and Bev are injury prone, and this team needs a 4th guard. MDA doesn't trust Brown or Ennis. Morey talked about adding depth and the recent rumor of Chalmers and Jack makes sense. Right now they are relying on Brewer to replace EG's scoring, and we all know how bad that can go....
We need another playmaker. Every time Gordon puts the ball on the floor to drive I hold my breath. I'd rather take a little but of load off of him and let him go balls to the wall p***y to the pavement during the playoffs
Eric Gordon is team first. he is one of the most likeable guys I can ever remember rooting for on the rockets. Impossible not to like Eric Gordon. He is a great teammate. I can't think of a recent rocket that embodies the team first attitude as much as him since shane battier (EDIT: and yao ming) . The answer to your question is yes we can count on him as long as his body allows. I truly believe this dude will give everything he's capable of giving. That's more than we can say for other injury prone players we've had (t-mac, dwight)
yes, he is fine. I'm fine with him getting his body right for our playoff push. he has already played more games than last season
Absolutely not. As others have pointed out, there's a reason we got him on a cheap deal. Same goes for Ryno. This team was supposed to be a mid-tier playoff team with a great offense. The hot start raised everyone's expectations and we don't hold up very well. It's like we fueled up to go from Houston to San Antonio and are getting nervous that we'll run out of gas in El Paso. We aren't built to go that far unless we get red hot. "A Puncher's Chance" as they say. Just enjoy the ride.
Y the sad face? Yao too!!! He gave this city everything his body had. I rock a yao poster in my cubicle at work haha. I dont rock tmac or dwight posters. I like em as dudes but they werent team first loyal guys like yao Im wearing a yao shirt now lol. he just slipped my mind when i wrote that post for a second
Yeah, we can just rely on him for less than 82 games. Also, he's injury prone, otherwise he would not be available for $12m. We can't have it both ways lol.
We should just rest him for the rest of the games drop to 6th seed and then kill everyone in the playoffs
I said it before he needs a game off every week or so we need to manage him better. I would rest him for the Suns game and bring him back for the game against the Heat who are flying.
Look . . .I don't care . . . if he plays the last 28 of the season like he did the first . . . .I'm good by 28 . . i mean 4 rounds of 7 First Round Second Round Western Conference Championship NBA Championship Rest all he wants during the season Same with Anderson Rocket River
I'm happy for the Rockets to continue resting Gordon here and there in the stretch run home to give him additional rest to overcome these small issues. As OP said we're a completely different team without him - and I shudder to think about how we'd fare in a playoff series with him injured or carrying a nagging injury. Hopefully management looks at the schedule and picks out a few easy home games to give him off. (I don't generally like this idea - but for Gordon I think it needs to be done)
I'm just glad this is a topic of discussion. Dudes been 10x anything we could've expected him to be. If Gordon had no injury history he would've demanded and gotten a max contract.
