Dee Gordon Played Youth Hoops Against Kevin Durant
Did you know All-Star Miami Marlins infielder Dee Gordon "first and foremost" was a basketball player?
In his recent piece with the Player's Tribune, the Marlin with supersonic speed opened up about his infatuation with hoops firsthand, which included encounters with some NBA stars and an eventual shift of athletic dreams.
When I was young, I played against a couple of guys you've probably heard of, like Kevin Durant and Mike Conley. I also saw Greg Oden play when we were young. He was on Mike Conley's team, but when I played against them, Greg was hurt, so I didn't get to actually play against him.
When I was 12 years old, I was at this basketball tournament in Orlando, and everybody was talking about this LeBron James guy, who was a couple of years older than me. Everywhere you turned, you heard LeBron James. There were even Division-I scouts hanging around. And I'm thinking, What is goin' on here?
The gym was packed, overflowing with people who came to see LeBron James, and he didn't disappoint. He came out and scored 40. I've been a LeBron James fan ever since.
The 5-foot-11 Gordon always thought he was going to be a college basketball player. That all changed after his father, former MLB pitcher Tom Gordon, and uncle sat him down one afternoon after Dee returned from hooping.
They sat me down and told me that they decided I needed to play baseball in college, not basketball.
I was like, What? You guys gotta be kidding me… And they said they weren't. They thought playing baseball was in my best interest.
I didn't have any schools looking at me to play baseball in college, but I had several scholarship offers from schools to play basketball. But my dad and my uncles wanted me to play baseball? I thought they were crazy. But I trusted them.
Gordon and his family made the right choice.
Nearly a third of the way through his first season with the Marlins, he's leading the majors in batting average (.368), ranks second in steals (20), and is 12th in On Base Percentage (.395).
In the same piece, Gordon broke down the matchup between the Cavs and Warriors in the NBA Finals, though Miami Heat fans likely won't be thrilled with his prediction: Cavs in 6.
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