Brooklyn Nets: Evaluating Houston Rockets fire sale possibilities
By Phil Watson
Eric Gordon
Eric Gordon is a former Sixth Man of the Year winner who will be 31 on Christmas Day this year and has missed at least 10 games in nine of his 11 career seasons due to injury.
He is on an expiring deal worth $14.06 million for 2019-20, so there is at least a possibility mathematically of a match with the Allen Crabbe contract the Brooklyn Nets would dearly love to move, but such a trade would (a) not open up a lot of cap space and (b) would likely not be to Houston’s liking.
Darey Morey would probably balk at the idea that adding Crabbe — coming off his worst season as a rotational player with a bloated $18.5 million price tag — would make the Rockets more of a championship contender.
Gordon declined a bit this season, working as a starter in 53 of his 68 appearances while averaging 31.7 minutes a game.
Despite the small increase in workload, his scoring fell off from 18.0 points per game to 16.2 this season and he’s never provided much in the way of rebounding, facilitating or defense.
He shot 40.9 percent overall (not a deal-breaker considering he hit 40.6 percent in 2016-17 when he was named Sixth Man of the Year) and made 36 percent of 8.8 3-point attempts per game.
While the expiring contract might be an attractive trade piece to have, with Brooklyn’s appearing to have a goal of maximizing cap space to go after younger, more high-profile free agents, Gordon isn’t a terrific fit.