PORTLAND, Ore. — NBA rules allow players to stay on the court until 45 minutes before tipoff if they want, and Aaron Gordon used nearly every second of it Saturday.
He shot jumpers. Ran sprints up and down the sideline. Practiced his dribble in front of a trainer’s tight defense. And smiled, a lot.
Never mind that the former Arizona Wildcats forward didn’t play in the Orlando Magic’s game with the Portland Trail Blazers, due to a foot fracture suffered nearly two months ago. The game, the evening, the entire four-games-in-six-days-craziness of a road trip the Magic is on, didn’t make a bit of difference in one sense.
To Gordon, it was all a victory, another sign that he would soon be going back to the game he craves with a passion. It was a victory, especially compared to what he was doing in November and December.
In the early weeks after the Nov. 21 surgery on the fifth metatarsal of his left foot, the Magic rookie didn’t run, didn’t jump, didn’t hardly move.
His friends: some weights, a chair, a basketball and a television.
“The first couple weeks were a struggle,” Gordon said. “I had to find something to do besides basketball. I wasn’t traveling. I was in crutches and a splint. It was not fun. Getting from point A to point B, not being able to put weight on my foot was a struggle, and it was frustrating to watch my team play.”
Gordon did what he could. He worked out his upper body in the gym without moving his legs. Then he sat in a chair, for hours, shooting close-in jump shots, with mind-numbing repetition.
There was nothing else he could do.
“It was mostly shots off the wall,” Gordon said. “You don’t have the luxury of a rebounder when the team is away, so you set up a chair and just shoot against the wall. Work on rotation, and work on your mechanics. I did that over, and over, and over.”
At least it was better than watching TV. Gordon found some distraction there, but also found Magic games to watch and wonder what he would have done if he were in them.
That part really drove him crazy. Gordon’s hard-driving “motor,” the one UA coach Sean Miller cited for his Pac-12 Freshman of the Year season as much as his coachability and team-focused mindset, was shut off.
“I know it was tough on him in the beginning,” said Orlando guard Elfrid Payton, who became close to Gordon on the 2013 USA Basketball U19 team and after they were both taken in the 2014 NBA draft. For him, “it wasn’t so much not being able to play, but having to watch everybody else play.”
There were some enjoyable games to watch, of course. Those were the ones Arizona played in.
“They have all the talent in the world,” Gordon said of the Wildcats. “They have the experience. They’re battle-tested. Those guys have been together for a little bit now, and even though Stanley (Johnson) is one of their best players, I think it really comes down to T.J. McConnell. If his team’s going to prosper, it’s going to come down to him stepping up. He has the capability of doing it.”
Gordon left the Wildcats as a freshman last spring, and, had he happened to suffer his injury a year ago, there’s no telling if he still would have been able to be the No. 4 pick in the draft, as he was last June.
Like former teammate Brandon Ashley, Gordon might have needed to return to UA to prove what he could still do, or take a chance on being drafted at less than 100 percent.
But he won’t play in hypotheticals.
“Wherever you are now is where you are,” Gordon said. “There’s a bunch of what-ifs that could be said, but regardless of where it happened, it was going to be back on the court to play.
“This organization and the staff take really good care of me. They are very deliberate at what they are trying to do, and they have a lot of knowledge about this injury.”
So deliberate that the Magic still won’t even put a timetable on when Gordon might return, although his presence on Orlando’s current four-game road trip suggests he is getting closer.
And when he does get back, there’s no doubt his newly repaired foot is going to hit the ground running.
Maybe for years, and years.
“He’s going to have a great career, a long, great career,” Magic coach Jacque Vaughn said. “It’s an injury that can be corrected. I’ve had the surgery before and never had to worry about it again.
“He’s a very intelligent kid. He understands the process, that if this is something that can help his career, he won’t have to worry about it anymore. … It’s not a setback. It’s much stronger now. He’ll be good.”
