Gordon's in a very difficult position right now and it's no surprise he doesn't really look like he's having fun. As Celticinorlando said, for the most part he looks like he's working hard, defending hard, rebounding hard, trying to facilitate, being unselfish...but when he shoots he just can't get it into the hoop. Doesn't matter if it's from 3, from a (rare) drive, from a pull up, his shooting touch and confidence have totally deserted him. And he can't just shoot his way out of it like Kyrie did the first month of the season because he only has the 5th highest usage on the team at 19% and the ball doesn't always go to him when he is open, or when he is he passes up the shot to pass to someone else that he thinks has a better shot. Doesn't help him on the stat sheet in that sense.
Then he has to face his mental demons about his injury...I fractured my leg a number of years ago and it took 2 years to even start to feel like I could trust it to do the things I used to do, like surfing, skiing and running and I'm not a professional athlete that puts their body under immense stress.
Then to top it all off he has a $30m contract that was signed on the expectation he was going to be the No2 scorer in the team, then he gets injured and nobody from Boston even gets a chance to see what he *could* do (aside from looking at Youtube highlights which look like they're from a different player). Then he comes back and he looks like he's playing in mud. So it doesn't matter what his contribution is, because it's not what we were expecting from someone of that cost. Everyone is like "why are we paying this clown $30m when we could get someone doing what he does for $10m or less?"
And the thing is, that's a perfectly fair question to ask. You could say it's heartless, but professional sport is cruel. You're only as good as your last game. Injuries suck but you're expected to get over it, because time is short. Fans measure you on your contribution now. None of us know Gordon personally, he's just a guy on the court that's not contributing to our team the way we think he should. For many fans there's no room for sentiment, we all see players come and go: "So he broke his leg, big deal. Other people had injuries too and they got over it, why can't he?"
He's got a tough road ahead of him this year, and I suspect it's only going to get worse for him. He probably knows that which is why he doesn't look like he's enjoying himself. I just hope that his teammates have his back because if they don't then this really isn't the place for him. If they're not passing to him because they think he sucks, or they're mad at him for taking "their" minutes, then he will never get out of this hole he is in. His challenge can't be faced alone, he needs his teammates to be behind him.
Topic: Unnamed Warrior: Hayward a “liability on both sides of the court” (Read 15561 times)