DeAndre Jordan

DeAndre Jordan - One of the top prep players in the state of Texas made a verbal commitment to the Aggies yesterday.

DeAndre is rated by Rivals as the #3 player in the state of Texas, #2 in the Houston area and #33 overall. If he has a good year this winter I would look for these numbers to only improve as he was very impressive at most of the AAU camps this summer.

This is a tremendous pick-up by coach Gillispie and Jordan's impact will be felt from the minute he touches the court.

DeAndre is about to begin his senior season and will enroll at A&M in the fall of 2007. All indications are that he is a very well-spoken kid with a good head on his shoulders and is already fully qualified academically.

At 6'11" and 240 pounds - he is built for power and is a dynamic Power Forward.

Jonathan Givony an NBA scout from draftexpress.com had this to say about DeAndre:

It’s not difficult to see why Jordan is skying up the recruiting rankings lately. Standing 6-11 with a tremendous wingspan and an outstanding frame that will put on as much weight as he needs, Jordan is without a doubt the prototype of what NBA scouts look for in a modern day big man, probably more than any other player we’ve seen so far. He is an outstanding athlete who runs the floor extremely well and is incredibly quick off his feet to block shots, pull down rebounds and finish with authority. He reacts quickly to things that happen around him, has a fairly soft touch and is not afraid to take the ball strong up at the basket. The downside is that he is still a very raw prospect, which is what you would expect considering the fact that he is just beginning to become a well known name this past spring and summer. While he has strong legs and calves, the source of much of his explosiveness, he lacks significant bulk in his upper body, which hurts him in terms of fully making his presence felt around the basket. He doesn’t know how to use his body yet to carve out space and finish while being contested, and relies too much on his athleticism and length when going after rebounds and blocks. His timing is decent, but still betrays him at times, and occasionally you will see him not even attempting to go out of his area and come up with a rebound. Boxing out, using crafty footwork and other fundamental moves you’ll see come intuitively from a big man like Kevin Love for example are just not in his repertoire at the moment. Mentally is where Jordan might be the rawest right now, possessing an average feel for the game, having an inconsistent motor, and getting very frustrated at his teammates (sometimes rightfully so) when they won’t pass him the ball. Despite all these highly correctable weaknesses, Jordan has about as much reachable potential as anyone we saw today besides possibly O.J. Mayo. He’s going to have the opportunity to jump to the NBA after one season if he chooses his college correctly, but could very well end up staying 2 or 3 years. Jordan is a very well spoken young man (as you will read in an interview we’ll publish in the near future) and mentioned that he is currently looking at Texas, Texas A&M, Florida, LSU and Indiana as his top choices. When pressed, he also added Rick Pitino and Louisville and said that he is planning on committing to his favorite school fairly early in the process.

http://www.draftexpress.com/viewarticle.php?a=1425

That's downright exciting.

Sports Illustrated also had a quick bit on Jordan from a Reebok camp in New Jersey earlier in July.

DeAndre Jordan, Undecided
Jordan, a 6-foot-11 rising senior center who is still unsure where he'll attend high school next year after spending last year at Episcopal (Bellaire, Texas), is leaving no doubt that wherever he ends up, he'll be one of the nation's best big men. Jordan had a rough outing in the night game on Saturday but was phenomenal during the day session, scoring 18 points, grabbing seven rebounds and blocking three shots in a showdown against Love. Jordan is long and athletic and looks to dunk everything when he gets in the paint. He has the potential to be a special player if he improves his post moves.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/highschool/07/09/
abcd.saturday/index.html

Jordan's rivals page can be found here:

http://rivalshoops.rivals.com/viewprospect.asp?pr_key=39241&Sport=2

The B/CS Eagle also had a good write up on DeAndre:

http://www.aggiesports.com/stories/072806/mbasketball_
20060728048.php

When Jordan's team releases their schedule for this fall we should all pick a game and go watch this kid play.

That is all for now.

I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Carry on.
-sb