Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Lessons from the loss to the Orlando Magic

Aaron Gordon started the Slam Dunk contest early! OH MY GOD!

Aaron Gordon put on a serious show last night. He put on a dominant display not seen since he was in Kyrie Irving’s movie “Uncle Drew”. If he hasn’t been invited to compete in the Slam Dunk contest during All-Star weekend yet, can Lake Show Life get a vote? The athleticism on this dude shows why not many humans can play in this league. What he did to JaVale McGee made former Magic player Tracy McGrady proud.

Here’s the scary thing about all of this. That was good defense. JaVale did exactly what a defender needs to do without fouling. He even read the play and recovered quickly. It’s just that Gordon just made an outstanding play.

Okay, JaVale didn’t play good defense here. But it didn’t take away from the athletic play from Gordon.

This play shows how fast the NBA game is. McGee had just one wrong misstep and the game was over. Even as he tried to push Gordon to draw the foul, it didn’t matter because of the explosive leap. If you don’t like plays like these, you don’t like NBA basketball.

Aaron Gordon scored 21 points, grabbed 6 rebounds with 3 assists and 2 steals. But his biggest contribution in the game was that his defense bothered LeBron James. Big and athletic wings are starting to bother LeBron as he gets older. After the first miraculous dunk, Gordon had his swagger and let the Lakers that they were in for a dogfight.

Two players were up to the challenge.