NBA lockout 2011: Clipper Eric Gordon’s plans
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There was one trip to China and another overseas adventure looming, to Switzerland, later this month. In between those journeys was a trip to Memphis last week and a photo shoot for Adidas in Los Angeles this week.
You might say the NBA lockout has not slowed the Clippers’ Eric Gordon. Not in the least.
Gordon, the team’s star shooting guard, isn’t exactly camped out fulltime on his sofa this summer. In fact, the ramifications of the NBA labor situation aren’t quite real for him. He was working out Wednesday morning over at Loyola Marymount University,
“It really hasn’t sunk in,” Gordon said. “I don’t think it will sink in for everybody until they hit that September period where you’re like, ‘Man, we really don’t have to go back to where we need to go.’”
Gordon’s agent, influential dealmaker Rob Pelinka, is contemplating putting together a team to take part in a tour of China, possibly involving Kobe Bryant. Gordon thought that it “sounds like a good idea” but hasn’t spoken with Pelinka about any specifics of such a trip.
Playing overseas on a grander scale will be a question that Gordon deals with only if a lockout wipes away the whole NBA season.
“It depends. If it was the whole season, I would think about it,” Gordon said. “But I wouldn’t say that’s my option at all.”
Gordon got to know recent Clipper draft pick and power forward Trey Thompkins last summer and they have spoken since the lockout started.
“I’ve known him since high school and I’ve been playing against him,” Gordon said. “He has good upside. I think he’ll really help us out a lot because he can shoot and I think that’s what we need, a couple more big men that can shoot.”
Closer to home, Gordon recently watched his little brother, Eron, play in an AAU tournament in Memphis. Eron, 13, is not so little, already 6-feet-1, Gordon said. Young Eron’s team took third place in the 13-and-under nationals.
“I was more athletic,” Gordon said of himself, back at age 13. “But I know the thing he can do better than I did was that he can score better. I do give him some credit for that because he can score in various ways.”
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--Lisa Dillman
