Former Arizona basketball standout Aaron Gordon has found the perfect fit with the Denver Nuggets, who wouldn't be where they are — the NBA Finals — without his selfless contributions.
Jon Gold Special to the Arizona Daily Star LOS ANGELES — It was not quite the Best Block Of A LeBron James Postseason Shot Attempt By A Wildcat Of All Time — the BBOALJPSABAWOAT, if you will, which, of course, is owned by Andre Igoudala — but Aaron Gordon’s Game 4 deflection of LeBron’s last-ditch effort to extend the Western Conference Finals was everything Gordon has brought to the Denver Nuggets rolled into one play.
“The little things he does for us are big things,” Denver coach Mike Malone said after the Nuggets’ Game 3 win over the Lakers. “Aaron is a guy that is always flying under the radar.”All about winningFor so long, to some people, that’s all Aaron Gordon was — an aerial artist.To the Nuggets, he’s exactly what he needs to be, and the difference is in every inch of Gordon’s long body. It’s in his tattooed shoulders, upright and strong, and in his face, no longer fixed into a sad frown.
The No. 4 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft after one terrific season in Tucson, by 2017 Gordon was the face of the franchise. That year, he averaged a career-high 17.6 points per game but shot a career-low 43.4% from the field, and he was asked to guard the opposing team’s best player every night, leaving him, in his own words, “exhausted.”
Man in the middleThere’s fit and then there is chemistry, and those two are like identical twins. They’re often confused for each other. Here’s a crazy statistic: Gordon is just 27, yet he’s about to put the finishing touches on his ninth NBA season. He’ll have just turned 28 when he starts his second decade in the league, a wily old veteran still entering his athletic prime.
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