Bulls' No. 1 pick has makings of future champion

[dasox24]

This is a pretty good read:

 

Bulls' No. 1 pick has makings of future champion

June 27, 2004

BY JIM O'DONNELL STAFF REPORTER

 

 

If Ben Gordon's stock had risen any more dramatically in the final days before the 2004 NBA draft last week, investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission might still be scouring John Paxson's video room at the Berto Center for evidence of insider touting.

 

Gordon went from ''probable'' lottery pick to ''certain'' lottery pick to ''Step aside, big fellas.'' When the Bulls chose him with the third selection overall Thursday night -- after only Georgia prep sensation Dwight Howard and University of Connecticut/NCAA championship teammate Emeka Okafor -- Gordon and his jones ascending were actually causing at least a few hearts along the Chicago NBA compendium to ping out a hopeful beat or two.

 

He is West Indian-pedigreed and New York playground-schooled with a demeanor as impassive as a security man at a free reggae festival. But if Gordon's eyes are right out of Snoop Doggy Dogg, long-time associates insist that his jitterbug dawgs are squarely on the flight path of a next-stage Allen Iverson.

 

''Ben is one of the most gifted basketball players that you will ever see,'' said Clyde Vaughan, an assistant on the 2003-04 NCAA champion UConn Huskies, and like Gordon, a West Indian born in London but raised in New York's Westchester County.

 

''His natural talent is staggering,'' Vaughan said. ''In practice, even on our national championship team, there were many days when it was a man among boys out there. Like Allen Iverson, he can create his own shot off the dribble or beat you with the jumper and leave you wondering how did it all happen. All he needs to flourish in the NBA, whatever raps people want to put on him, is if he can sustain his focus and go out game after game and summon his enormous talent.''

 

Summon his enormous talent. Call on the beast. The magnificent basketball beast within. The Ben Gordon basketball beast within that is not always known for answering the opening tap-tap-tap.

 

That idling beast was never more apparent than in the Huskies' regular-season finale last March, a 67-56 loss to Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Gordon finished with only 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting along with five turnovers. Head coach Jim Calhoun decided it was time to amplify the call to the beast and Vaughan became horn-blower designate.

 

''Coach Vaughan was the one who really got in my ear,'' Gordon said. ''His message was basically, 'C'mon, we're getting to the serious part of the season and you're only as good as your last performance.' He made me realize that I was putting too much pressure on myself and that it was time to go out and just play basketball with some reckless abandon. And that's what I started doing and I think those last nine basketball games may have been the best basketball of my life.''

 

That personal best opportunistically intersected with the brightest lights of the college basketball season. With Okafor missing the first two games of the Big East tournament, Gordon scored 29 vs. Notre Dame, 29 against Villanova and 23 vs. steel-curtained Pittsburgh during a 61-58 championship-game decision. It was that streak that brought Gordon center stage on the radar of Paxson and the Bulls' draft intelligentsia.

 

''It wasn't Ben's [final pre-draft] workout which moved him up with us,'' Paxson said. ''It was that run in the Big East tournament, how, with Okafor out, he carried the team on his back.''

 

Six victories later, Gordon, Okafor and the Huskies were the NCAA champs.

 

Gordon has been positioning himself to carry good basketball teams on his back since his youth in Mount Vernon, N.Y. The checkerboarded suburb is located just north of New York City and counts among its most famous past residents Denzel Washington, Art Carney and Sean ''Puffy'' Combs.

 

Gordon, mother Yvonne, grandmother Avis and sister Ingrid migrated to Mount Vernon after his brief birth cameo in London. In England, Yvonne Gordon had a child with but never married fellow Jamaican Howard Haughton, Gordon's natural father. Haughton remains in London, although he visited his son in Mount Vernon two years ago. The attempt at enduring reconciliation did not take.

 

''He stayed at the house with us but it was unnatural,'' Gordon told the Hartford Courant. ''I couldn't relate to him at all. I mean, I'd be in the room with him, just chillin', looking at him and thinking, 'Damn, this guy looks like me.' But it was so hard to adjust to. That was the first thing I can honestly say ever hurt my feelings in my life.''

 

Said Vaughan: ''I don't think Ben's father has been any factor at all in his life. But his mother has been everything. She maintains an incredibly Christian household in Mount Vernon and Ben knows right from wrong. He is not a street kid. But he is a young man who simply fell in love with basketball and had the talent and desire to take it to the places he's taken it to.''

 

Gordon's love affair started at a neighborhood Boys Club in Mount Vernon at age 10, the same Boys Club at which an adolescent Denzel Washington worked on his takes and dribbles 35 years ago. Eventually, Gordon would lead Mount Vernon High to a state championship his junior season and become one of the most recruited prep backcourtmen in the nation.

 

He almost chose Seton Hall but instead settled on Connecticut. One key recruiter was then Huskies assistant Dave Leitao, now the head coach at DePaul.

 

''The Gordon household was very religious, very straightforward, very quiet,'' Leitao said. ''Ben was a very special kid to recruit. He had a seriousness of purpose about him and really wanted to excel at basketball. One thing I remember about him was that he had no tattoos, which struck me as different.''

 

(Says Vaughan: ''I think he has at least one now, but so what? Don't half the 21-year-old kids in America now have at least one tattoo of some kind?'')

 

UConn won the prep-star-arising and soon, teaming with Okafor and NBA-to-be Caron Butler, the Huskies were back on the same star track that led to the 1999 NCAA title. That ascent reached fruition with the victory over Georgia Tech in the 2004 NCAA championship game three months ago.

 

In Gordon's three seasons at UConn, the Huskies lost 23 games. This past season's Bulls won 23 games. Plus, NBA cynics question whether Paxson can move forward into the Bulls' new world with a talent-laden but undersized backcourt of Gordon and Kirk Hinrich.

 

Gordon, for his part, appears excited, but also as impassive as ever. He traded in his 1988 Mercury Marquee a few weeks ago and bought a $100,000 Range Rover with a Huskies blue interior. The net he cut down after the victory over Georgia Tech is draped over the driver's seat.

 

There appears no question that if the beast within is willing, Gordon's NBA career could be first-tier.

 

''This is a fairy tale,'' he said. ''To think that two guys from the same school could win an NCAA championship and then get taken two-three in the draft. And I wound up playing for Michael Jordan's team.

 

''But you know,'' Gordon concluded, ''I always thought I should be No. 1.''

 

The basketball beast within --and the UConn coaching staff -- would applaud such self-confidence. SEC representatives at the Berto Center might continue to investigate.

[Jordan4life_2007]

I feel we got the best all-around guard in the draft. Atleast as far as guards ready to contribute right away. There's nothing this guy can't do.

[dasox24]

I feel we got the best all-around guard in the draft.  Atleast as far as guards ready to contribute right away.  There's nothing this guy can't do.

I know, I'm so excited about this guy. If Crawford isn't back next year, then I think either him or Okafor will be the two front runners for rookie of the year.