It looked like a foreign comic book and featured an overblown caricature of Clippers guard Eric Gordon. His head was huge, like some giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Gordon, 20, seemed to take the teasing in stride from fellow rookies DeAndre Jordan and Mike Taylor. After all, he has been dubbed "The Hobbit." So what's a flimsy comic book after all that?
"At first, he wasn't handling it too good," Taylor said of rookie hazing this season. "I think now he's comfortable with it."
Gordon remains hard-pressed to talk about himself. It doesn't seem to be shyness but perhaps innate Midwestern reserve. ("The quietest Clipper," Taylor says.) His father, Eric Sr., played for Liberty University, and the young Gordon has watched film of his dad.
"He's got a similar game, you can see," Gordon said. "But it's funny. There's the short shorts and he had a 'fro. That's the biggest difference between me and him."
Said Mike Dunleavy, Clippers coach and general manager: "He's very quiet. It's hard getting him to blink his eyes."
Maybe the outspoken Jordan and Taylor were starting to rub off on the third rookie.
"Clowns," Gordon said of them, joking. "They're funny guys. They need to become more like me."
Lisa Dillman, LA Times
