So, after my spending a post singing the praises of Kevin Durant, I tuned in once again to ESPN2, to see a high school basketball game between the #22 ranked team in the country Loyola Academy and North Central, a school from Indiana, who has the #2 ranked high school player in the country, Eric Gordon. Loyola got most of the talk from the announcing team, however, because they featured Marcus and Jeff Jordan, the sons of Michael Jordan, who used to be a very good player for the Chicago Bullets. Eric Gordon is a different type of player than Durant, but he is probably just as good.
Here’s part of a write up on the game from the Chicago Sun-Times, since I am sick of trying to come up with superlatives for basketball players:
Gordon, who broke the hearts of many Illinois fans in the fall when he reneged on a commitment to the Illini and signed with Indiana, finished with 43 points on 17-for-25 shooting, five rebounds, four steals and three assists.
He showed that he was a prime-time player in front of a crowd that included not only Jordan, whose sons Jeff and Marcus play for Loyola, but former Thornridge, Indiana and NBA great Quinn Buckner.
I haven’t seen the number one ranked high school player O.J. Mayo play yet, save for a couple of video montages on Youtube (check out the falling ref one for a laugh), but I have a hard time believing he could be all that better than Gordon was last night. All in all, I am starting to worry that these players may be getting too good.
The announcers kept on talking about the brothers Jordan the whole game though, and everytime they did, they would flash over to the elder Jordan in the crowd, taking in the game. I wonder if there was a point where he just said to himself, you know what, my kids are down 21 points, I’m just going to sit back and watch this Gordon guy light up the night. I wonder if he thought, I wish Gordon was my kid. Even though Marcus Jordan is only a sophmore and supposedly has huge potetial, I wouldn’t trade both of the Jordan brothers for this Gordon kid.
You’ll be happy to know that I didn’t tune into the St. Joe’s University v. St. Louis University game that followed. Who would watch that save for alumns? or people who just discovered they have ESPN2?