Letting go of his former genius and giving up his obsession with the starting position, Gordon ushered in the ripening of fruit in the middle of summer. The fruit was a little sour, but the first harvest of his career allowed him to finally say goodbye to the haze of other places.
Maybe give up in order to move forward
The "Best Sixth Man" award was not a blockbuster at the award ceremony, and the final winner Eric Gordon's acceptance speech was also not explosive, and he rushed to step down after one thanks. However, there are two details worth playing in the whole process, one is that Gordon breathed a sigh of relief after getting the trophy, and the other is that after Gordon stepped down, the camera was given to Gordon's family, her mother smiled and applauded, and the male relatives behind her bowed their heads and pulled out their handkerchiefs to wipe away tears silently. This is the true feeling that can be touched by the bland scene words and the empty and powerless sense of form.
The best sixth man is really not a big prize, but in the words Gordon put it in a later interview, "it means a lot."
Gordon used the term "unbelievable" to describe this past season, which is without any exaggeration. Before he signed a 4-year contract with the Rockets, the team must have assured him that he must have imagined the future after going to the Space City, after experiencing so many twists and turns, it is always time to "keep the clouds open and see the moon", right? But he never expected that he and the Rockets would work together to create such a wonderful season.
It was Gordon's most complete season since his rookie season, in which he played 75 games. Although Gordon suffered from a big toe injury, a sprained ankle and back pain during the season, there was no major injury that was enough for him to be reimbursed this season.
For the past five years, he has been in an "injury-surgery-rehabilitation-re-injury" cycle, and no injury can torment a young player who is eager to get ahead more than injury. Injuries tormented his spirit and body, sharpened his heart, and gradually dimmed his original bright prospects, and he had to choose to accept. He had to accept the fact that he couldn't play, he had to accept that his status was not as good as before after he returned to the team, he had to accept that he could no longer run and jump on the court like before, he did not accept his new positioning.
Now it seems that experiencing these injuries is not a good thing. He gradually lost his core position on the Pelicans, Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans held more of the ball, so he tried to become a pitcher, he adjusted his shooting style and posture to help the team open up space, in the Pelicans' final season, three-point shooting became his main scoring tool, for the first time in his career, his three-point shots accounted for more than half of the total shooting. His three-point shooting has also reached a new high, and his average three-point shooting per game has also reached above the horizontal line (38.4%). Gordon must not have thought that this long-range shooting skill he spent a lot of effort to train has become his killer for the new season, and even helped him win the three-point king crown in the All-Star Game. Now it seems that "where misfortune and blessing depend", everything has cause and effect.
From "Los Angeles Young Lord" to "New Queen Bee" to "Glass Man" to "Rocket Sixth Man", the conversion of each character is not easy. Gordon recalls mike d'antoni convincing him to play sixth man: "When he came up to me and said, 'Hey, if you play on the bench, you'll make us a better team,' and he had the expectation that I would win the best sixth man. Gordon has become accustomed to taking on new roles, and this shift means more of a whole new challenge for him. As a result, the players who had only 19 substitution experiences in the first 8 seasons of this career began to become the best sixth man in the team.