Houston Rockets kick ’em while they’re down: 4 trades for Eric Gordon

It appears to be open season on the Houston Rockets’ roster and there’s no lack of interesting prizes. Could Eric Gordon be on the move as well?

There’s an all too familiar sight in those blue Texas’ skies. The vultures are circling and they’ve spotted a wounded animal faltering in the red hot sun over Houston. The Rockets that is and they’ve had a good run. But with all aggressive teams striving to be the leader of the pack, sometimes there’s just a different type of animal in your pride; smarter, stronger and more adaptable, that prevents you from ever ascending the throne.

Now the Houston Rockets are down and wobbly, bloated (by top-heavy contracts to it’s two stars) and stewing in their internal juices (chemistry issues with some players unhappy with their roles and demanding trades). Although there still looks to be a lot of fight in the current construction of the beast, those vultures have been around a long time and know their business well. While they do go hungry on occasion, they don’t circle this intently unless they are expecting a meal.

With that, we come to a favorite NBA pastime and indispensable content go-to:  fantasy trades, or in this case:  Picking over the boneyard; Houston Rockets edition. While most attention will go to Russell Westbrook’s demand for a trade, and rightly so, the teams mentioned to be interested aren’t really that good. Most rightly stink and adding him won’t make these alleged suitors contenders for anything but a few more dollars in merchandising.

Sometimes it’s the influence of the No. 3, 4 and 5 options who can shift the fortunes of those teams with title-bound dreams, and Eric Gordon is exactly that. The perennial No. 3 scorer for the Houston Rockets of the last four seasons; Eric Gordon was on the All-Rookie team after averaging 16 points on 39 percent from 3, while starting 65 games for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2008 and kept it up to win NBA Sixth Man of the Year in 2017 with the Houston Rockets.

He’s a proven commodity as a scorer and an extremely underrated defender, holding Klay Thompson and Donovan Mitchell to just 42 points on 30 percent shooting in over 300 defensive possessions during the 2019 playoffs per Second Spectrum. What’s more, Eric Gordon has done it consistently for a long time and up to now, has been tight-lipped in his various stops in the league.

But coming off his worst season with the Houston Rockets, he expressed some frustration with his role and wants to show the injury-plagued and inefficient year was an outlier. He has stated that he wants to be top five in 3-point makes while shooting over 40 percent and the key “…boils down to team chemistry, and me staying healthy”. He stressed that his health is good and “…I won’t have to worry about that,” in a recent interview with Ashley Nevel.

What teams could be interested in trading for Eric Gordon?

Whether that’s with the Houston Rockets or not remains to be seen, but that kind of motivation bodes well for teams wanting a reliable 16.6 points per game over 12 seasons from all three levels and tough on-ball defense while going about one’s business like a professional. That’s what Eric Gordon does and he could help a lot of teams. Here’s a look at four of them who could be at the front of the line.