Basketball's New Wave: the Young Superstars Taking Over the Game by Brian Mahoney

Author:Brian Mahoney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUVENILE NONFICTION / Sports & Recreation / General / Basketball / Biography & Autobiography
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Aaron Gordon

Imagine trying to make a basket and having a dragon in your way. A tall, green dragon with a snout for a nose who is standing on top of a hoverboard.

Aaron Gordon simply jumped over him.

That was during the Slam Dunk Contest during the NBA’s All-Star weekend in 2016. Gordon didn’t win the contest that night in Toronto, but he had some of the most memorable slams the event has ever seen.

Iconic players such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant have been slam-dunk champions, but nobody had ever attempted anything quite like what Gordon did. The dunk began with some help from Stuff the Magic Dragon, the Orlando Magic’s mascot. With Stuff spinning around on a hoverboard with the ball, Gordon grabbed it with one hand and did a 360-degree dunk. On his next dunk, he got another assist from Stuff. Gordon leaped high to take the ball, put it under his legs—while nearly in a sitting position in midair—and slammed it down with his left hand.

Both dunks earned a perfect score of 50 points from the five judges. Many people thought Gordon should have won. However, Zach LaVine held Gordon off in a final-round “dunk-off.”

“I knew I wanted to do that because it was just different. I knew it hadn’t been done in the NBA dunk contest,” Gordon said. “I knew all four of my initial dunks hadn’t been done in the NBA dunk contest before.”

He may be best known for that contest, but it would be wrong to think of Gordon as just a dunker. The 6-foot-9 forward has worked hard on his shot every year he’s been in the NBA. In his fourth season, Gordon had a game in which he went 5-for-5 on three-pointers while scoring 41 points. That was the highest total of his career.

That’s right, able to dunk over dragons and fire in three-pointers.

Gordon had two 40-point games in that 2017–18 season. No Orlando player had done that in seven seasons.

“He’s got a chance to be one of the more complete players in the NBA,” teammate Arron Afflalo said during that season.

Gordon Plays the Bad Guy

Gordon had a role in the movie Uncle Drew in 2018, and part of it came naturally. He was the high-flying Casper Jones, a powerful dunker who was the best player on his team. But unlike in real life, where his dunks made him a fan favorite, he was the bad guy on screen. He was the trash-talking rival who played against the team that included Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, and Chris Webber. “I’m the nicest villain that you’ll ever meet in your life,” Gordon said. “Toward the end of the movie, you’re like, ‘I don’t really like this guy, and I’m happy he gets what he deserves.’ But I think I played the part pretty well. If I need to play the villain, then I can play the villain.”

Gordon is part of an athletic family. His father, older brother, and sister all played college basketball, and it soon became clear Aaron was going to do the same.

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