Former Hoosier and LA Clipper rookie Eric Gordon put together his best performance to-date in his brief NBA career on Friday: 41 points in a 107-104 win over Oklahoma City.
Gordon shot 12 of 19 from the field and 12 of 14 from the foul line and is averaging 17.5 points since being inserted into the starting lineup on November 24.
The 41 points set a Clippers franchise record for a rookie.
Related:
Armon Bassett, the subject of an excellent piece written by Chris Korman in yesterday’s Herald-Times, has enrolled at Ohio University.
Here’s an excerpt from the press release:
Ohio University head men’s basketball coach John Groce announced on Friday that guard Armon Bassett has enrolled at the University for the winter quarter and will begin competing for the Bobcats at the conclusion of the 2009 fall quarter.
“We’re extremely excited to welcome Armon Bassett into the Ohio basketball family,” Groce said. “I’ve been close with Armon and his family for a number of years, and I’m confident that he’ll be a great addition to the program, both on and off the court. This is an exciting day for Armon and Ohio basketball, and we all look forward to helping him reach his goals over the next few years.”
I’m glad Bassett is getting a chance at another DI school, but from what I understand, one of Bassett’s reasons for leaving UAB was to be closer to home due to a personal issue. Maybe I’m looking at a different map, but Athens, Ohio is 328 miles from Terre Haute. Something tells me there’s more to the story, but we’ll probably never hear it.
+ Connect to Inside the Hall with Facebook: Inside the Hall readers can now login and post comments using their Facebook account. Just click the Facebook Connect link under the comment box to get started.
Around the Hall is recommended reading from the Inside the Hall crew.
+ Eric Gordon tells Chris Korman of The Herald-Times that he and Kelvin Sampson stay in touch and that the two will always be together. {The Hoosier Scoop}
+ Matt Dollinger of The Indiana Daily Student chronicles Gordon’s return to Conseco Fieldhouse and spots Indiana coach Tom Crean. {Basketblog}
+ Gordon says he’s not interested in talking about what happened in the past. {The Indianapolis Star}
+ Pacers coach Jim O’Brien says that Gordon has all of the right tools to become great at the NBA level. {The Indianapolis Star}
+ Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy talks about Gordon’s surprising defense for a rookie and Gordon talks about adjusting to the NBA. {Video, Pacers.com}
Quotable:
“I didn’t shoot the ball as well as I would expect to. It was different out there tonight. My heart was racing a little bit and I was trying to calm myself down. I had a lot of fans and friends in the stands tonight.” — Gordon on being back home in Indiana
I’m sitting on my couch now — I tend to do that a lot in the evening — and I’m watching Eric Gordon for the first time this season, as his Clippers are taking on my Bulls. I had almost forgotten how he played, but his first drive to the bucket snapped my memory back to its right place: he’s so strong, so smooth, he just looks like he belongs on a basketball court. This is what he was born to do. I love his game.
So, it was sort of random happenstance that Jeff Rabjohns of the Indianapolis Star dropped this exclusive interview with Eric Gordon this evening. And, in agreement with that Sports Illustrated article from October, it looks like a lot of kids were doing drugs on the team.
“It was the guys that were doing drugs that were separate,” Gordon told The Indianapolis Star in an exclusive phone interview this week, speaking publicly for the first time about the issues that played a part in a once top 10 team failing to win a single postseason game.
[ ... ]
Gordon didn’t disclose which players used drugs, but he said D.J. White and two others still on the team were among those who did not. Attempts to reach White and several other former players were not successful.
Gordon said Sampson “tried to stop it,” but the coach “was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything.”
Gordon said he spent considerable time with a family friend in Bloomington because the atmosphere around some players was so bad he didn’t feel comfortable on campus.
“Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on,” said Gordon, now a starting guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. “I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically.
“It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”
Former Indiana guard, who was booted off the Indiana roster last spring by interim coach Dan Dakich, is leaving UAB.
Jeff Goodman of FoxSports has the scoop:
Former Indiana guard Armon Bassett won’t play a game at UAB.
The 6-foot-1 junior, who was forced to sit out this season after transferring from Indiana, is leaving UAB, according to sources close to the situation.
Whatever the reason for leaving (speculation here that it’s grades), it’s a shame that a string of bad decisions ended Bassett’s career at IU and he’s now at another crossroads. Depending on the circumstances of his departure from UAB, it’s possible that he’ll get another chance somewhere, but his window of opportunity is getting smaller by the second.
After seeing a combined 44 minutes in his first six games as a Clipper, Eric Gordon finally got some clock on Sunday. The result: 11 points in 30 minutes as the Clippers won their first game, 103-92, over the Dallas Mavericks.
Gordon seemed a bit frustrated with his lack of playing time when speaking to reporters after practice last Thursday.
Apparently coach Mike Dunleavy saw something that convinced him Gordon was ready for the rotation or he realized the Clips are going nowhere fast and it was time to spread the minutes around. I’m guessing the latter.
If I’m the destined-for-the lottery Clippers, there’s no sense in keeping Gordon buried on the bench in favor of the aging Cuttino Mobley or Ricky Davis. Let’s hope logic prevails and the minutes for the man in that beautiful suit continue to increase.
