Player Facts
Height: 6'8"
Weight: 235lbs.
Date of Birth: Sep. 16, 1995
College Experience: Arizona (1 year)
Selections
All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0
Player Grades
Speed/Explosiveness: 10
Physical Strength: 8
Positional Size: 8
Positional Wingspan: 8
Paint Scoring: 9
Midrange Scoring: 4
Three-Point Scoring: 4
Dribbling: 7
Passing: 6
Perimeter Defense: 8
Interior Defense: 7
Rebounding: 8
*This page may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase
through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclaimer for more information.
Join the Patreon for Exclusive Player Profiles & Additional Perks!
STRENGTHS
Intro
Aaron Gordon is an insanely athletic combo forward. He spends time next to one or even two bigs but is maximized while functioning as a four-man. He also provides two-way skill and has some nice measurements: 6'8" with a wingspan just under seven feet.
Explosiveness
His coaching staff is smart to integrate actions into the offense that slingshot AG to the rim. The downhill pressure he can offer is elite. He can take off from way beyond the rim for acrobatic, jaw-dropping layups and dunks.
Catch-and-go's, backdoor cuts, and basic dribble drives are all ways Aaron uses what is an outrageous first and last step. Length and size on the basketball court always help but there's a good chance he'd even be an electric finisher at 6'3" hypothetically speaking. Lucky for him, he has the size of a modern four-man to supplement his crazy bounce.
Aaron is perfectly crafted to be an open-court killer. He is a prolific dunker here in addition to all of his half-court power jams. With windmills, double-pump slams, and one-hand tomahawks, he recorded 171 dunks in 2023-2024.
The metrics like Aaron's finishing largely because he gets so many dunks. It's hard to be an inefficient rim finisher when you're getting 100+ slams a season. His 2023-2024 93.4% dunk efficiency was baked into his unreal 70.8% mark in the restricted area.
Quick Decision Making
A player with Aaron's physical makeup and basketball skillset is destined to be a natural modern roll man. Slipping the screen rather than setting it gets Gordon going swiftly to the rim. He should be utilized as the screen-setter in these actions more often.
Aaron's playmaking skills can be showcased on the short roll. His mental processing speeds are super quick as he scans the floor. AG locates his frontcourt mate with a quick lob or will throw a dart to the clean man in the deep corner.
That 4.1 dimes per 36 in 2023-2024 captures some of Aaron's valuable short-roll/secondary playmaking ability. Beyond this though, he unselfishly moves the basketball and collects some hockey assists too (pass leading to assist). He can even be tasked in the quarterback/hub role up top.
Brutish Post-Ups
Posting up against mismatches (and getting some spin-out from defensive fronting) is where Aaron will get a chunk of his points. He does not need a deep enough bag of moves to pick from - he picks his spots for overpowering smalls here.
When facing up, the rapid rip-through to the baseline is always something that should be top of mind for the defender. After all, the man in front of him can very rarely match up with his quickness.
Aaron Gordon was solidly in the 63rd percentile on post scoring in 2023-2024. That was more efficient than Bam Adebayo, Alperen Sengun, and Julius Randle.
Roaming Off-Ball
He's most dangerous as an off-ball threat when weaponizes his speed and leaping ability. The Arizona product is a truly devastating cutter and doesn't even need perfect timing on a cut to make his mark. His huge catch radius for nabbing lobs is valuable unto itself.
Identifying cutting opportunities is also a strong suit for the forward. He does a good job of seeing when a penetrating teammate seizes the attention of the defense. Then, he can turn on the jets towards the cup. Elite baseline-sneaker is part of his repertoire too.
His face cuts and back cuts are both tough for the defense to contend with given all that size and athletic ability. Aaron was in the 89th percentile as a cutter in 2023-2024, pouring in 257 points here. Ever since his arrival in Denver, the point center savant Nikola Jokic has helped Gordon maximize his cutting for points.
He continues to make use of those spring-loaded legs as an aggressor on the offensive glass. The quick leaping ability really comes into play here more than his huge vertical does. Gordon can beat his man up to the ball with that quick-twitch explosion.
Rangy Defense
AG is an extremely versatile defensive player. He plays smart team defense too but flexes his value by defending 1 through 5. Understandably, there are some tougher assignments at either extreme of that spectrum but for the most part, he holds his own or does better.
Lateral quickness and superb closing speed are the tools Gordon leans on as a defender. He is also very agile at 6'8", similar to big forwards like Pascal Siakam and Jerami Grant. Great closing speed caps his relevant athletic toolkit here.
His athleticism makeup culminates in a strong point-of-attack defender during the many instances that his swingman counterpart uses ball screens/accepts handoffs. Gordon is arguably one of the best wing-sized point-of-attack defenders in the Association.
Nimble Wing Defense
While his screen navigation footwork isn't always ideal, Aaron can blow up a lot of actions thanks to his active, and large, hands. His 10.5-inch-wide hands were tied for the second largest in his draft class. Mucking up two-man actions and pouncing into passing lanes, Aaron deflected 101 balls in 2023-2024.
A deeper look at the advanced statistics unearths more favorable data points within Gordon's defense. Back in 2019-2020 he was in the 69th percentile defending dribble handoffs. Additionally, he was in the 83rd percentile guarding one-on-one that year, earning a superior foothold here to Jimmy Butler, Jaylen Brown, and Matisse Thybulle.
Aaron has the luxury of being able to play players tightly one-on-one. This is because his recovery speed and side-to-side mobility are phenomenal. When the isolation sequence works out as planned for Gordon it goes like this: hug up to take away jumper off the triple threat, play with feet to stay with an attack, and provide good contest with 6'11.75" reach.
Blocks + Boards
Finally, some key shot-blocking ability at forward and defensive rebounding inputs round out his résumé here. The bouncy Gordon is usually giving you 0.8-1.1 swats per 36 minutes. He also skies for rebounds that most players cannot even get to.
WEAKNESSES
Shoddy Shooter
His biggest offensive question mark lies beyond the three-point arc. Guys can go under screens against Aaron without much fear. Spotting up from deep is still a streaky exercise for Gordon with a catch-and-shoot three clip under 30% in 2023-2024.
He also used to take a lot of midrange jumpers but shot a miserable percentage. Adding up 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020, he shot 144/469 (30.7%) on midrangers. Not much improvement has occurred since then in this respect. Moreover, his floater game is lacking in terms of versatility and accuracy.
Aaron is unable to redeem himself as a shooter when taking foul shots. Simply put, he's had too many seasons of sub-70% especially given that he's a small forward/power forward. His respectable rate in which he draws fouls means that Gordon is leaving several points on the table.
Iso Issues
An additional problem area for the 6'8" Aaron is isolation. He was pitifully in just the 13th percentile for iso scoring in 2023-2024. Some of this has to do with role shrinkage and a lack of opportunity to gain rhythm, but a sizable amount of blame can be put on Gordon and his lack of strong countermoves. His ball-handling can be a bit of an adventure at times as well.
Defensive Discipline
One small concern with Aaron Gordon as a defender is post defense. It's not so much a height or strength issue as it is a discipline matter. For instance, he can eagerly leave his feet on the first move by his man, opening the door for an easy step-through or and-one. These same big bodies can give him fits as roll men too.
- Sale!
- Books
The Mamba Mentality
- Original price was: $45.50.$35.45Current price is: $35.45.
- Buy Now
- Sale!
- Books
Basketball(and Other Things)
- Original price was: $24.99.$18.25Current price is: $18.25.
- Buy Now
- Sale!
- Books
The Book of Basketball
- Original price was: $29.00.$21.88Current price is: $21.88.
- Buy Now
- Sale!
- Books
Sprawlball
- Original price was: $35.00.$31.34Current price is: $31.34.
- Buy Now
Players Appearing Here – Check Out Their Profiles
- Bam Adebayo [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
- Alperen Sengun [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
- Julius Randle [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Nikola Jokic [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Pascal Siakam [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
- Jerami Grant [Coming Soon]Opens in a new tab
- Jimmy Butler [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Jaylen Brown [PATREON]Opens in a new tab
- Matisse ThybulleOpens in a new tab
