TUESDAY, 3:08pm: Gordon has formally declared for the draft, the school announced (Twitter link).
MONDAY, 8:04am: Arizona freshman Aaron Gordon has decided to enter this year’s NBA draft, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, who adds that a formal announcement will come this week. The move is no surprise, as Spears reported late last month that the highly touted forward was strongly leaning toward turning pro.
Gordon is No. 6 in the prospect rankings that Chad Ford of ESPN.com compiles, and he’s No. 8 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress. He averaged 12.4 points and 8.0 rebounds for the Wildcats, who missed out on a trip to the Final Four with a one-point overtime loss to Wisconsin. Gordon scored just eight points on 3 of 11 shooting in that game, but he nonetheless grabbed 18 boards.
He suffers from the lack of a well-defined position, as our Eddie Scarito pointed out when he examined Gordon last month as part of our Prospect Profile series. He also shot just 42.2% from the free throw line. The 18-year-old possesses outstanding athleticism and plenty of upside, so it’ll be intriguing to see which lottery team banks on his improvement in the years to come.