Ben Gordon's hard work over the summer has already impressed his head coach, according to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.

"Ben's summer ranks right there with the greatest summer I've seen from a player," Scott Skiles said.

Gordon possesses a quality that any self-respecting worker can understand.

"I love to get better," Gordon said after practice Wednesday. "That's the reason I play. That's the reason I started. It was never about maybe making a million dollars playing basketball. So I still have that same love for the game and that same drive. Until that goes, people will see me here every summer working hard and trying to get better."

About the only changes to Gordon's summer were the frequency and fashion of the workouts. A typical day featured a morning basketball workout, a range-of-motion or stretching session and then a return to the Berto Center for another basketball workout.

"I wouldn't even attempt to guess how many balls he shot this summer," Skiles said.