Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. (born December 25, 1988) is a Bahamian-American professional basketball player who last played for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In high school, he was named Indiana Mr. Basketball during his senior year while playing at North Central High School. He is known, in part, as the subject of a recruiting competition between the University of Illinois and Indiana University in the spring and summer of 2006; because of Gordon's talent and high level of play that year, his recruitment was the subject of media coverage.
Gordon played one season of college basketball at Indiana and was considered one of the top collegiate players in the nation that year. He finished his freshman season leading the Big Ten in scoring and tied for 19th in the nation at 21.5 points per game. Gordon entered the 2008 NBA draft and was selected seventh overall by the Los Angeles Clippers.
Gordon was born in Indianapolis. At age four, he began playing sports at the Jewish Community Center across the street from his home, starting with soccer and then quickly moving on to basketball. At age seven he began playing competitive basketball at the Municipal Gardens. It was at the JCC that Gordon announced his departure from college to enter his name into the NBA draft.
Gordon attended Fox Hill Elementary School, down the street from his childhood home. He then attended Northview Middle School and North Central High School, where he played varsity basketball all four years. North Central's 2007 game against Loyola Academy of Wilmette, Illinois which featured Michael Jordan's sons, Jeffrey and Marcus, was aired on ESPN. He scored a record high of 43 points that night. He later went on to score 50 points twice during the season. He led North Central to the Indiana 4A title game his senior year. They fell to E'Twaun Moore, Angel Garcia and East Chicago Central. Gordon averaged 29 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.3 assists while shooting 57.0% from the field, 77.9% from the free-throw line, and 46.2% from three-point range. He was named Indiana's "Mr. Basketball" for 2007 as well as a McDonald's All-American. Rivals.com ranked him the nation's #2 high school prospect in the class of 2007, behind Michael Beasley.
During the summer, Gordon attended many AAU tournaments, Adidas Superstar camps, and Big Time in Las Vegas. He played on teams that included future NBA players Mike Conley Jr., Josh McRoberts, Daequan Cook, Derrick Rose and Greg Oden.
In 2005 as a sophomore in high school, Gordon made an early verbal commitment to Bruce Weber, who had somewhat recently replaced Bill Self as the University of Illinois' head coach when Self left to accept the head coaching position at Kansas.
On November 30, 2005, Gordon made a verbal commitment to play basketball for Weber at Illinois, despite overtures from Duke, Arizona and Notre Dame. Gordon and his family cited their comfort with Weber, the relatively short distance to the Illinois campus from their Indianapolis home, and the success of former Illini guards Deron Williams and Luther Head in the NBA as reasons for their decision.
On February 15, 2006, Sports Illustrated reported that Mike Davis, then the head coach at Indiana University, intended to resign after the 2005–06 season, due in part to a lack of support after the team failed to make the NCAA tournament in 2004 and 2005. Indiana subsequently hired Kelvin Sampson as the new men's basketball coach in March 2006. Some reporters speculated that Gordon was uninterested in playing at Indiana under Mike Davis because of Davis's lack of success. Shortly after Sampson was named head coach, he hired Jeff Meyer, Eric Gordon Sr.'s college basketball coach and a longtime family friend, as an assistant.
During the subsequent offseason, Gordon was recruited by Sampson's staff after Gordon told Sampson he was again interested in Indiana. It was rumored in July 2006 that Gordon was considering opting out of his verbal commitment to Illinois because of concerns about the quality of Weber's Illinois recruiting class, but Gordon said that although he was a childhood fan of the Hoosiers and was considering Indiana, he was still committed to Illinois. During that same month, Gordon played with fellow top-5 recruit Derrick Rose in an attempt to convince Rose to join him at Illinois, but Rose declined the offer.
Rumors of an impending IU commitment continued into the start of the 2006–07 academic year, fueled in part by Gordon's rise to the top of some services' rankings of high school basketball players and the reemergent Indiana Hoosier basketball program. On September 2, 2006, Gordon and Rose made an unofficial visit to Indiana to scrimmage with Hoosier players, fueling further speculation that Gordon would switch his commitment. Six weeks later, on October 13, 2006, Eric Sr. announced that his son had officially decided to do so. Gordon signed a National Letter of Intent with Indiana on November 8, 2006.
Gordon's announcement gave Indiana a very strong 2007 recruiting class, ranked by some analysts as the third-best incoming class in the country. Sampson and Weber both received criticism from fellow coaches for failing to communicate with one another about Gordon's recruitment. Although the NCAA does not regulate verbal commitments or the recruitment of orally committed players, some observers have claimed that Sampson acted unethically in recruiting a committed player without first contacting Weber.
The timing of the switch was particularly damaging for Illinois, which had planned for Gordon to be part of its class, and was left without a shooting guard at a time when other guards had made verbal commitments. The Illini received a letter of intent from top 100 shooting guard Quinton Watkins of Compton, California, the following December, but, due to NCAA Academic Clearinghouse issues, he did not play for the Illini, eventually deciding to enroll at San Diego State.
Gordon was warmly welcomed by Indiana fans, but received sharp criticism from Illinois fans for publicly maintaining to the press his commitment to playing at Illinois until just a few weeks before he signed with Indiana. Eric Sr. stated in October 2006 that his son had received death threats as a result of his decision, but his son later stated that Illinois fans had only said they did not want the younger Gordon to be successful. On February 7, 2008, when Gordon and Indiana played Illinois in Champaign, he was the target of loud booing and taunting throughout the game. Illinois fans were reportedly particularly enraged that the Gordon family, and its entourage, wore "Got Gordon?" T-shirts. At one point during the game, Eric Sr. stood up, turned around facing away from the court, and "flipped off" the Illinois fans, which caused fans to focus their ire on Gordon Sr. rather than just his son. Some witnesses reported that his parents were hit with ice, empty plastic water bottles, and orange-and-blue beads near the game's end. Illinois's athletic director, Ron Guenther, apologized for the incident, calling fan behavior "disappointing and intolerable."
Gordon attended Indiana University Bloomington (IU). There he played shooting guard with the Hoosiers for one year and planned to study sports management. During his year at IU, Gordon attained many honors. He was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year and made the third team All-American. He is IU's all-time leading freshman scorer. He set a record at IU and in the Big Ten with 669 points. He was a candidate for the Wooden Award and Naismith Award, and was named second-team All-American for CBSSports.com. He wore number 23, as he did in high school.
Gordon finished his freshman season averaging 20.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game, making 33.7% of his three-point shots and leading the Big Ten in scoring. He was highly effective for Indiana in his first 18 games as the Hoosiers started the season with 17 wins and only one loss, but entered into a noticeable shooting slump at the end of the year, making only 18.6% of his three-point field goal attempts (13 of 70) after Indiana's February 7 win against Illinois and shooting only 3 of 15 from the field and 0-of-6 from the three-point line in the team's loss to Arkansas in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tournament. Gordon played the second half of the season with an injured wrist.