When I saw that Aaron Gordon scored 28 points in the Magic’s improbable win over the Celtics, I immediately thought one thing: SLAG has returned.
(SLAG is my nickname for Gordon – it stands for Summer League Aaron Gordon, but the nickname is not always applicable.)
Then, my eye slid across his statline, only to disappointingly find that a large chunk of his point total had come off of free throws; thirteen of them, in fact. That is in direct contradiction to the essence of SLAG; SLAG is a jumpshooter first and foremost, ready to fire and drain shots from anywhere on the court. SLAG is not a free-throw whore. SLAG is an unstoppable offensive juggernaut who only incidentally draws fouls.
So, it with significant regret that I declare SLAG to not have made his return quite yet. Instead, this is just an above-average performance for DRAG (Disappointing Regular-Season Aaron Gordon). That latter nickname is especially appropriate, as the unnecessarily large amount of free throws present in this video makes it drag at times. You’ll definitely want to click through it to skip to the good parts.