Houston Rockets guard Eric Gordon, the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2017, is returning to his bench role.
In a chat with reporters on Monday, the Rockets’ new head coach Stephen Silas confirmed that Danuel House Jr. will get the starting spot in 2020-21 over Gordon. According to Silas, the decision was made due to House’s defensive abilities.
“I like House because he can guard the best player on the floor,” said Silas. “He’s a spacer. He can kind of live [on offense] off of what James, John, and C-Wood do. Then having Eric’s veteran scoring and defending punch off the bench in a more featured role, that makes sense to me.”
Gordon split his time between being a starter and coming off of the bench in the past three seasons under Mike D’Antoni. He saw his most prominent starting role during the 2018-19 season when he had 53 starts out of 68 appearances while also starting all playoff games.
Commenting on Silas’ decision, Eric Gordon said that he is fine with both being a starter and a reserve but prefers to have a defined status.
“I just want to have some consistency to where I either just come off the bench, or start,” said Gordon. “I know previous years, I’d always go back and forth, and it was sometimes frustrating as a player.”
Gordon is looking to have a bounce-back campaign this season after he struggled with injuries in 2019-20. He managed to play only 36 games, having a second career-worst average of 14.4 points per game.
