By now, the collective basketball world has deciphered the obvious: The Houston Rockets are the NBA’s second-best team.

They sport a 25-8 record. James Harden is the runaway MVP candidate. Chris Paul is smiling for the first time in six years. And Clint Capela is now a DeAndre Jordan clone. It really can’t get much better for head coach Mike D’Antoni and general manager Daryl Morey, who’s currently lapping his competitors in the Executive of the Year race.

When Morey takes home his first EOY trophy—is there even a trophy?—it’ll be something like a lifetime achievement award. This team is actualizing his long-term vision of what efficient basketball should look like. The Harden and Paul trades were the keys, of course, but Morey’s deals on the margins have been critical, and none more so than Eric Gordon.

Gordon, who signed what is now a cheapo four-year, $53 million contract in 2016, may be on his way to a second consecutive Sixth Man of the Year Award. (Commissioner Adam Silver can just expedite everything by having the NBA Awards Show in Houston.) He’s also integral to the team’s title hopes.

D’Antoni runs a slim three-guard platoon, but he’s almost evangelical in the way he staggers Harden and Paul. Gordon is virtually always on the court with one of the two stars, logging starter-type minutes and playing a crucial second-fiddle role.

The Rockets are a streamlined pick-and-roll machine when Harden runs the point. D’Antoni will throw in some off-ball actions for his shooters, but generally, Harden gets a screen from either pick-and-pop specialist Ryan Anderson or lob-smashing dynamo Capela and then goes to work.

Each player has their niche in this scheme. Capela, for instance, sprints toward the rim, while shooters dot the three-point arc and space the floor. Gordon has canned just 35.1 percent of his threes on the year, but that blasé mark understates his gravity. He has infinite range, and as a noted quick-trigger assassin, he doesn’t let defenders dare help off him. He’s up to 42.4 percent from deep in December and shooting 43.2 percent overall on wide-open bunnies, which make up more than one-third of his long-range attempts. Even when he goes 0-of-8, he keeps the lane open for Harden and company. Poor Yogi Ferrell is just perplexed about his help responsibilities here:

Possessions break down, though. And they’ll break down relatively often if (when?) Houston meets the Golden State Warriors in the playoffs. If Capela whiffs on a pick or Harden can’t punish a switch, the Rockets need another creator to bail them out.

Enter Gordon.

The 29-year-old ranks in the league’s 75^th percentile for points per possession as a pick-and-roll ball-handler—better than Harden himself—and scores 5.5 points per game on drives while shooting 52 percent. He’ll size up players at the top of the arc, sprinkle in a few crossovers and zoom to his left:

He’s especially potent in transition, when Harden can take down a board and push the ball forward. Those early hit-aheads give Gordon a head start, and an inch of room is all he needs to burst to the rim. Once there, he’s finishing at a 64.8 percent clip—his best number in six years, per Basketball-Reference:

The story changes with Paul on the floor. Instead of acting as a floor-spacer or safety valve when primary actions collapse, Gordon often is the primary action. CP3 remains a top-10 player, but he’s 32 years old and, unlike Harden, isn’t an offense unto himself. He’s more comfortable quarterbacking set plays and sacrificing usage for execution.

D’Antoni’s playbook isn’t deep, but it doesn’t need to be. He’ll leverage Gordon’s shooting with simple screening actions and go back to the same play until the defense stops it. And disrupting it is easier said than done—especially when the ball reaches a multi-dimensional finisher like Splash Gordon:

Some of D’Antoni’s sets aren’t even designed to yield a three-pointer. Gordon has unbelievable athletic ability for someone who’s undergone multiple knee surgeries and played 10 grueling years of professional basketball, so Magic Mike is comfortable giving him the ball in a dribble handoff and letting him burst downhill.

Gordon scores 1.30 points per possession with CP3 in the game and no Harden, compared to 1.18 points per possession in the opposite scenario. The Rockets as a team have scored 126 points per 100 possessions with those two in the game, an ungodly number that, somehow, rises to 139.7 when all three guards play together.

That triumvirate may form the core of Houston’s very own postseason Death Lineup, but it won’t tally extensive minutes together every game; Houston’s roster is too shallow. On the flip side, that lack of depth does mean a superstar playmaker will always be in the game, a luxury few modern teams have ever enjoyed. It also means Gordon is the second option every time he steps on the court.

Sixth men don’t typically play that kind of role. Most vaunted bench scorers—think Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams or even Dwyane Wade this season—prop up otherwise hopeless second units before adding some extra oomph to smaller late-game lineups. These guys raise your floor. They make sure those second-quarter lulls aren’t mid-game disasters.

Gordon, on the other hand, raises the Rockets’ ceiling.

They could cruise through the regular season with a steady spot-up shooter in his stead, but he transforms a stellar offense into a historically great one. At the end of the first and third quarters, he creates and attacks space, salvaging dead possessions alongside Harden. At the beginning of the second and fourth periods, he finishes the plays Paul creates. Gordon can do standard sixth-man stuff—he’s had to with CP3 injured—but the variance he adds to D’Antoni’s spread pick-and-roll attack taps into his deeper value.

Come playoff time, when defenses try to scheme against Harden and Paul, Gordon will take on even more responsibility. Whether he’s defending first-unit guards, providing an out-ball when Harden gets trapped or making seven threes to secure a fluky win over Golden State, Splash Gordon is the Rockets’ X-factor.

If he plays well, they have a chance against the Warriors. If he plays poorly, they devolve into a one-dimensional machine whenever either star sits. None of their other bench guys replicate what he does, and few players would fit so snugly into his unique role.

Eric Gordon is a brilliant offensive player, but he’s not your father’s sixth man.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from NBA Math, Basketball Reference or NBA.com and are accurate heading into games on Dec. 28.