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Eric Gordon “I’m just not having fun”

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by motleydeflep6, Dec 7, 2018.

  1. motleydeflep6

    motleydeflep6 Member

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    https://theathletic.com/700266/2018...-finger-pointing-next-chris-paul-eric-gordon/

    SALT LAKE CITY — At this point, the Rockets were only down eight.

    They had survived the wacky and emotionally-charged first half full of runs, fouls and even a Rudy Gobert ejection. A comeback couldn’t be ruled out — after all, Houston had the two best players on the floor together.

    And then, three minutes undid it all.

    In the time it takes to heat up a plate of spaghetti, Utah doubled its lead. And the Rockets looked completely out of it.

    After Chris Paul committed a turnover and gave up a three-point play, he signaled to the bench. “EG,” he called out, almost as if he wanted to sub himself out.

    A few plays later, a James Harden turnover led to an easy Jazz layup. An irate Mike D’Antoni called timeout, and Harden started a slow walk to the bench, almost zombie-like. Houston was down big, heads were down, solutions nonexistent.

    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not for a contender. Not even for a pretty good team. This season, there have been one too many instances of the team trying to get out of the arena as quickly as possible after bad losses, with locker room conversations few and far between. These Rockets used to be fun, high-flying and energetic. What the Rockets are now is a team with an 11-13 record, half a game above the 14th-placed San Antonio Spurs.

    They could hang their hat on the fact that the rest of the Western Conference is beating each other up, but there’s one common denominator: they’re all beating up on Houston. All the optimism and praise from Media Day is gone.

    “They just beat us in every which way they could,” D’Antoni said. “We’re obviously searching for answers and we haven’t found them yet.”

    After a questionable offseason, there were serious questions about whether Houston had enough to get back to the Western Conference Finals to avenge the defeat to Golden State. Surely they wouldn’t be at the 65-win pace they displayed last season, but it shouldn’t have been this steep of a drop off. There’s still time to turn it around, but if they keep this up, this inconsistent level of play, the playoffs should be the last thing on their minds.

    In the locker room, a somber Eric Gordon shared his thoughts on the offense not getting going, the sloppy play and the bad losses piling up.

    “We just make the game harder on ourselves,” he explained. “It’s truly on us. It’s definitely tough, very disappointing to see how we’re playing. It’s hard to explain.”

    Where do they go for a solution? The reserved Gordon hasn’t been the happiest of campers this season, but even he couldn’t hold back any longer when I caught up with him as he was leaving Vivent Arena.

    “I’m just not having fun man,” Gordon told The Athletic. “I’m just not. This sucks. Even the times where I have good games. We’re just not using some guys the right way. Are we gonna make the right sacrifices? Do we have the right attitude?

    “Last year was the best year I’ve ever had being a part of a team,” he added. “We just never had a bad moment. If we ever had a bad game as a team, you knew the next game we would blow somebody out. It didn’t matter who it was.”

    But Gordon paused after that. He realized that making comparisons between last year’s team and this one are useless. This team is unrecognizable to this point.

    “We can’t compare this team to last year, because we’ve had a lot of changes. More young guys, we just have to look forward to what’s next.

    “Look how they’re playing, that’s how we used to play. Sharing the ball, getting up and down and attacking. We’re not doing that anymore.”

    That begs the question, what exactly needs to be done? The veterans don’t believe a players-only meeting is necessary at this point. The only logical next step would be a trade of some sort. A jolt, maybe that could wake them up.

    To Gordon’s point, the argument could be made that this is a somewhat new group, and is still figuring each other out. There’s been a number of ins and outs on the fly, and that activity combined with a regular season campaign could theoretically cause inconsistency.

    But this group is too old for that. They’ve been there, they know what it takes to grind a season out. Some of the losses they’ve suffered so far have been so head-scratching, dandruff might appear. P.J. Tucker only took two shots tonight, Gordon eight. He didn’t sound too pleased with that, but that’s understandable with any loss. You feel as if you could have done more.

    What he alluded to, which might get lost in translation, is his point about guys on the team not being utilized correctly. The Rockets on the surface have three guards capable of scoring at multiple levels and creating for others, albeit at varying levels of efficiency. In James Ennis and Tucker, they have two wings who are capable of defending multiple positions and hitting outside shots. Gerald Green, Gary Clark and Danuel House are athletic role players who can shoot. Nene and Clint Capela have you covered as far as big man depth.

    So who’s being misused? Could it be himself he was talking about? Gordon is certainly able to create his own offense, and against the Jazz he wasn’t afforded that many opportunities. Is it a coaching thing? Perhaps he’d like to see the offense open up a bit more, especially in half-court scenarios.

    The Rockets always start games running dribble handoffs involving multiple players, maybe he’d want to see more of that going forward. Adding more wrinkles to an offense that’s capable of elite production might do some good. After all, doing the same thing over and over and expecting something different is the definition of insanity.

    Most teams, if not all, are prepared for Houston’s ISO-heavy scheme. They’ve had a years worth of film to study it, and the better, more physical teams like Utah will punish you. Capela couldn’t get going all night long, and the Jazz used their bevy of wings and length to force the Rockets into committing 22 turnovers. When they start to give opposing teams easy points because of their mistakes, the floodgates open. This, of course, is a catch-22, because one benefit of isolation is mistakes are meant to be greatly reduced.

    In any case, these sort of losses bring the Rockets back down to earth, which could bode well for the near future.

    “Yeah for sure, and that’s what we’ve been doing,” Harden said of letting go of expectations. “We focus on what we have to do to improve every game and things aren’t always going to go great. Sometimes they will, but you just stay the pace, stay the course and stay locked in.”
     
  2. Pizza_Da_Hut

    Pizza_Da_Hut I put on pants for this?

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    Oh well. Now that he's not having fun we have something to fix. So glad EG interjected on this one.
     
  3. topfive

    topfive CF OG

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    Ugh. CP3 has been playing with a distinct lack of heart more often than not lately. Lazy turnovers that would have been unthinkable last year.

    I wonder how much this Melo garbage has affected his state of mind.
     
    Ramo$e, roslolian, IvanLCPM and 20 others like this.
  4. Deuce

    Deuce Context & Nuance

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    Kelly Iko injected his own thoughts there. I don't like that. I remember that sub, and it was after CP got hammered on a drive. He just might have felt he needed a breather after that. So, on THAT sequence, I wouldn't read much into that.
     
  5. barnsleyfan123

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    Man, I know Ariza isn't worth 15 mill a season, but couldn't we have given him 24 mill over 2 years or something like that? We're even missing Anderson at this point. Ennis is a good replacement for Luc but we lost some serious glue
     
  6. topfive

    topfive CF OG

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    Good to know, but the overall concern is still there. CP3 is playing like crap, and I don't think it's because he aged that much over the summer.
     
  7. clos4life

    clos4life Member

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    Neither am I Eric, neither am I.
     
    Remlap, IvanLCPM, darksoul35 and 28 others like this.
  8. Deuce

    Deuce Context & Nuance

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    This is the key quote. It signals mental state of the team. How last year they were more resilient and had more grit. They didn't get blown out and if they lost they would say "ok, now what?" and take care of business the next night.

    For some reason this year, they are letting go of the rope and not fighting back when they hit obstacles. I don't know why.
     
    RayRay10, AroundTheWorld and saleem like this.
  9. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Breaking news: Losing sucks
    Breaking news: Tillman ain't having fun
    Breaking news: Thaddeus "Run it back" Brown ain't having fun
    Breaking news: Daryl Morey ain't having fun
    Breaking news: Mike D'Antoni ain't having fun
    Breaking news: ClutchFans ain't having fun
     
  10. napalm06

    napalm06 Huge Flopping Fan

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    This season is a riddle without an easy answer.
     
  11. juanm34

    juanm34 Member

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    I’m not having fun watching these games....
     
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  12. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Keep in mind that Eric Gordon was making these same complaints last year privately as well.

    He tends to bring up not being used properly when things are not going well.
     
    gatsby, amaru, AroundTheWorld and 7 others like this.
  13. xtruroyaltyx

    xtruroyaltyx Member

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    Would be weird if he was having fun.
     
  14. DreamShook

    DreamShook Member

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    "Not the same team."

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Deuce

    Deuce Context & Nuance

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    Yeah, I remember that.
     
    Nook likes this.
  16. Nook

    Nook Member

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    [​IMG]
     
    Smacktle, whiskeyred and J.R. like this.
  17. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Count down until D'Antoni starts blaming his players.
     
    Easy likes this.
  18. hakeem94

    hakeem94 Member

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    this is 100% pure unadulterated life...there is no formulas to life...life is a mystery
     
  19. YOLO

    YOLO Member

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    nobody else is having fun either. want to start having fun? you and along with the rest of the team need to play better.
     
  20. tnluong84

    tnluong84 Member

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    I'm afraid this interview may end up resulting in an EG trade...
     

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