2020 Orlando Magic Player Outlook: Aaron Gordon

The Quest for Stardom

A favorite pastime for the national media it seems is coming up with trade ideas for Aaron Gordon.

Even as the Orlando Magic were in the midst of a playoff race last summer with Gordon as one of the key pieces to that run, there was a current of thought to try to get Gordon to a “better” situation and off the Magic.

There was seemingly a cavalcade of articles suggesting the Magic had misused Gordon and were not helping him realize his potential. They were searching for any way to get him to a new place.

The questions about whether Aaron Gordon fits with the new direction for the team — especially with Jonathan Isaac — are legitimate but nowhere near ready for an answer. The two showed enough promise working together last year to continue the experiment moving forward.

Orlando made a sizable investment in Gordon last summer and are eager to see how this still-very-young player continues to mature and grow. He took a big step forward last year even if his scoring did not follow.

And the Magic are eager to see where he goes next.

That is not to say the questions many of these articles and trade hypotheticals raise are not legitimate. It is getting to a point where Gordon has to start turning his potential into action.

He seemed on the cusp of stardom in 2018 with his breakout season and his ability to score. Last year, he took a step back on that front even though his improvement in other areas of his game probably made it his best overall season.

But that star player is still in there. And this season might well determine if he can become that kind of a player. At some point a player stops being defined by his potential and is who he is. Gordon seems to be approaching that point.

It will be interesting to see just how much the playoffs flipped a switch for Gordon. He noted how defensively he had to up his game and his focus to stand up to Kawhi Leonard. But offensively too, Gordon started realizing how important it is for him to take control.

In a playoff series where no one played particularly well, Gordon stood out.

He averaged 15.2 points per game (down from his regular-season average) but shot 53.2 percent effective field goal percentage. It looked like throughout the series, Gordon was hesitant to test himself against Leonard and rise to that stage.

He finally realized he had to in Game 4, where he scored a series-high 25 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out five assists. He had two games of 20 or more points in the playoff series.

If anything, the Magic’s biggest missing link in the playoffs was that Aaron Gordon did not take full control to try to ease the pressure off Nikola Vucevic. Gordon spent an entire season trying to fit in and not give in to his isolation tendencies. But at a certain point, the Magic needed that.

Gordon’s growth really is the difference between a low playoff seed and potentially competing for home-court advantage. Everyone can see the potential this Magic team has if Gordon realizes his full potential.

If Gordon is going to reach those heights, it is going to have to happen sooner than later.