Houston Rockets: Eric Gordon gets a harsh 2K20 rating

Despite coming off another stellar season for the Rockets and a playoff run in which he elevated his play, Eric Gordon has been disrespected by the 2K20 developers with a 78 overall rating. Here’s why EG should have received a better rating, and some players who comparatively make his 78 rating look underrated.

Eric Gordon isn’t quite an all-star, but he did win the Sixth Man of the Year Award two years ago and has continued since then to be one of the league’s best three-point shooters and backup scoring options. When James Harden is off, Gordon always steps into a bigger role and takes over the Rockets’ offense. Scoring 16.2 points and nailing 3.2 threes per game last season should have been enough to get Gordon to at least an 80 overall in 2K Sports upcoming video game, NBA 2K20, but it wasn’t.

Gordon’s 78 overall rating doesn’t look too bad theoretically, but when you look at players with similar ratings it is clear that he has been harshly judged. Take a look below at the list of players with better or similar ratings to EG.

Jayson Tatum 85 Overall: Seven overall points better than Gordon despite scoring fewer points per game on a worse team last season. He does some other things better than Gordon, and clearly has a boost because of his huge potential, but the discrepancy here is absurd – Tatum will earn that rating someday but he’s not there yet.

Kyle Kuzma 84 Overall: Another potential boost like Tatum, and no disrespect to Kuzma but 2K developers are clearly jumping the gun on these guys. Kuzma shot 30.3% from three last season which ranked second-worse in the league and outscored EG by just 2.5 points per game. Even Laker fans know this is absurd.

Bam Adebayo 79 Overall: Played a tick under 23 minutes per game last season as he was behind Hassan Whiteside in the rotation for a non-playoff team, he didn’t set the world on fire with single-digit scoring and rebounding either. He has major potential, but is not better than EG right now.

Terrence Ross 79 Overall and Evan Fournier: 78 Overall: Two similar role players who put up slightly worse numbers on a far worse team while not having a specialty skill like EG does with his three-point shooting.

RJ Barrett: 78 Overall: Hasn’t played an NBA game yet and played like garbage for most of the summer league.

No disrespect whatsoever to any of the guys mentioned here, they just so happen to be a part of the crop of players whose ratings have already dropped, and I’m sure there will be more outrageous ratings to come.

Is there a person on Earth who thinks Houston would improve if they swapped Gordon for Ross or Fournier? Or does anyone really think the gap between Tatum and Gordon is the same (7 overall points) as the gap between Tatum and Damian Lillard (92 overall)?

Gordon is a proven performer on both ends of the floor in the post-season in addition to the regular season, is that worth nothing? He’s the third-best offensive player on a team which won 65 and 53 games in the past two seasons, which should speak major volumes to his importance; Houston simply wouldn’t be the same team if you replaced him with many of the other players rated similarly to him.

Anyone who watched the playoffs would surely agree that Gordon’s rating it too low, as Gordon increased his scoring to 17.8 points per game with 40% three-point shooting on a whopping 8.8 attempts per game.

Since the 2000 playoffs, only six players who have made it past the first round have taken at least seven threes per game and connected on at least 40% of them: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson (three times each), J.J. Redick, Joe Ingles, J.R. Smith and Eric Gordon.

Another comparison worth looking at considering they went head to head in the playoffs is Donovan Mitchell, who is rated 88 overall. In a five-game loss to the Rockets, Mitchell averaged 21.4 points, 5 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game shooting 32.1% from the field and 25.6% from three. Gordon, in the same series, had 15.2 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game shooting 43.9% from the field and 48.6% from three.

Nobody is arguing Gordon should be higher than Mitchell, but ten overall points is a massive difference between two guys who have played at a similar level for back-to-back years going head to head in the playoffs.

We love you 2K, but you can’t make us believe one of the best three-point shooters in an era defined by three-point shooting isn’t worth an 80 overall at least!