Gordons best has yet to be seen, offensively and defensively. Right now his ceiling is as high as it ever has been. His game has already seen some solid development and it appears as if there's still a lot more to come.
However, my question isn't how good will he be or even how much you think he will improve this summer. The question I am posing to Magic fans is this; Do you want to see him shoot more?
As much as Orlando would love to see Gordon improve his shooting to the point where he can be a sustainable stretch four when required, is it something that is actually attainable? I decided to dig around in his stats from last season in the hope of finding something, anything that can be pointed to as evidence of his ability to become an above average shooter.
First of all let's take a look at some of Gordons shooting numbers from last season in comparison to the league average.
As you can see Gordon was below the league average everywhere aside from (surprisingly?) the right corner 3. So why is it that while shooting 43.5% from the right corner he took more shots in the left corner despite shooting far below the league average? I had to try and make sense of this so I watched every shot he made from the corner three last season of which there weren't many. In the ten shots he made from the right corner all of them except from two came from wide open shots where his feet were planted and the pass was right into the shooters pocket. Despite only making nine shots from the left corner he attempted more than thirty. Looking at the misses from the left corner they can be simplified and broken down into three types; Short, not set/moving and essentially bad luck. There are times where his form looks fine and the shot just doesn't fall, that's life. But more often than not his shots from the left corner appear to fall short, this would imply an incomplete follow through on the shot or an issue with rhythm. Why he has this issue in the left corner but not the right is a mystery to me but perhaps it's something that will improve with practice. If he can at least become an above average shooter from both corners it would give Orlando some better spacing. It's worth noting almost every one of these shots were assisted on, it usually involved either Fournier or Payton driving to the basket collapsing the defense and then kicking the ball back out to the corner. Although there were a couple examples of him gathering long rebounds and stepping out but not many.
One of the comparisons for Aaron Gordon I've tried to avoid is Blake Griffin, it seems like a popular comparison (probably due to the highlight dunks). Normally I wouldn't entertain it however I need you to bare with me because when it comes to shooting it's actually not a bad comparison. Blake was not a shooter when he entered this league and yet he has become quite adept from various areas on the floor over the last few years. The first chart below compares young Blake Griffins jump shooting percentages to Aaron Gordons most recent shooting percentages, the second chart is a comparison of young Blake and a more current Blake (2015)
As you can see Blake did improve as a shooter although more of his shots were assisted on. It's promising that Gordon has already reworked his jump shot fixing the kinks in his technique and it's likely that he will continue to improve. One thing I would like to see more of for Gordon are catch and shoot opportunities, last season he was averaging a higher eFG% on catch and shoot field goals than Jimmy Butler while only being marginally behind LaMarcus Aldridge.
Although Gordon will likely be able to improve his shooting the one area he might not improve is creating his own shot. That is something he rarely does. In fact out of every jump shot he took (three point and mid-range) only 24 of them were unassisted (just over 26%), around 74% of them were assisted on. Oladipo was responsible for many of these assists, now that he's in OKC Orlando may look to Fournier to distribute even more than last year.
Below you can see who was responsible for the most assists on Gordons made shots.
Aaron Gordon is an intriguing player, he seems to empower the idea of position-less basketball (which I love), maybe not as much as others such as Draymond Green but he definitely fits the general trend. I can't wait to see how much he has improved next season and based on what history has taught us there's no reason to think he can't become a competent stretch four when and if Orlando needs it.
But that's just my opinion, what about the masses? What say you Magic fans, does Gordon have what it takes to become an above average shooter? Are you happy with him taking more jump shots or would you rather he sticks to his strengths (scoring inside)?
