KC: Bulls Would Have Pulled BG Offer Regardless of Deadline

[boogydown]

The Bulls can fix this.

1). Move Salmons/Hinrich/Miller/Tyrus for expirings + picks
2). Fire VDN
3). Play rest of the season with Rose - Expiring 3PT Shooter - Deng - Gibson - Noah
4). Get a top 5 pick
5). Use remaining picks
6). Now they have around 25+ million cash
7). Sign Boozer 13/yr
8). Sign Morrow 9/yr
9). Add another player

Rose
Lottery Pick
3 Additional 1st Round Picks (This Season)
2nd Round Pick
Noah
James Johnson
Taj Gibson
Luol Deng
Anthony Morrow
Carlos Boozer

Just saying, the grass can be greenier on the other side.

[HomoSapien]

If KC heard it, it is 100% fact. Let's keep that in mind.

Bulls could have pulled the offer at any time.

Why is KC breaking this news, and it would be big news, in a casual email to a fan?

Again, we should treat this as 100% fact (although KC doesn't seem to be), that's a given.

I'm not sure why you're being sarcastic. K.C. has no reason to make it up to me in an email, and I also hope you're not suggesting that I made it up. It's big news to this board because we're obsessed with this issue. To everyone else, Gordon is boring.

Edit: Also, I don't see why there'd be any reason to doubt this. It's been obvious that Reinsdorf isn't a Gordon fan, and most of us (not including yourself though) always felt like the deadline was arbitrary. Not only was it arbitrary, it was also fake.

What I meant was, he said he heard it. He didn't say Pax told him.

I think it's a very big story, if true.

We hear lots of things every day. A reporter hears lots of things. Some things they can believe, some they aren't sure. Could it be he's not confident enough in it not to break it as an official story?

Now that KC said something anti-management, suddenly he's a fool proof source for info? Even though he hasn't made it official himself?

Come on now.

And Gordon is not boring to everyone else.

What you're saying may be his justification for it (although if I had to guess, I'm sure he gets most of his inside rumors from people under Paxson), but if all the CSN and past Tribune polls are any indication, Gordon was so unpopular amongst Bulls fans that they probably wouldn't care that much to read this story in December of 2009.

[kyrv]

I can vouch for homo (heh..)

In his 8 years here, he's never been one to make up stuff.

Though, I don't know if that was your angle Kyrv.

No, not at all, not questioning him OR KC, I'm just wondering is it something like, you know, I heard my neighbor is gay. But I don't want that broadcast as coming from me.

For me at least this would be a super huge deal, it would be hard to fathom. And since his livelihood is reporting...wondering he did not report it. So, who did he hear it from, was it something they were considering, or was there a blood oath to pull the offer regardless? Or was it, you know, we changed our minds, well, hmm, let's wait and see what Ben says and take it from there. Big difference from making an offer and chuckling all summer knowing the offer would be pulled. They waited to make moves, and in fact couldn't make (m)any deals. So that would be ass-hattery on top of just horrible basketball management.

[HomoSapien]

Maybe you could ask KC of his confidence level, and basically, that to us it's a huge deal and is it okay to bandy this about and attribute it to him (via his source of course)?

He gets paid to provide information and this is a bombshell he's giving away in an email.

I would be curious if this was a Pax/Gar/JR thing, whose idea? I do think Pax and below probably need to start tidying their offices and boxing up the goodies. They haven't gotten it done overall. And don't hire a brand new coach please and act indignant when he acts like he's never coached before. But I digress.

I'll follow up with him and post his response if he replies.

[kyrv]

What you're saying may be his justification for it (although if I had to guess, I'm sure he gets most of his inside rumors from people under Paxson), but if all the CSN and past Tribune polls are any indication, Gordon was so unpopular amongst Bulls fans that they probably wouldn't care that much to read this story in December of 2009.

The media and (casual) fans, listening to sports radio, have always been lukewarm on Gordon (that's being kind). However the rest of the league (players, media) seem to consider letting him go a mistake. If they did this, would not exactly help the organization PR-wise (nationally for sure).

[Mapelgleaf]

Simply: He's a tweener that's not a good fit on a lot of teams. You guys refuse to hear this fact. Drafting the 6'3 Rose all but nailed the coffin shut.

I agree, and that's why I get so uneasy when people suggest trading for Monta Ellis or Bayless. In most cases, it's not a good idea to have an undersized team. That being said, it's not easy finding talent, and Gordon was a serious talent that had a huge impact on winning. No team is perfect, yet it seems like a lot of Bulls fans ultimately dismiss a player's value if he isn't a great defender or rebounder. Every starting lineup has a weakness, every roster has undersized players. I'm positive that Gordon was never a weakness to the Bulls, and I know for a fact that he was the starting shooting guard on a top defensive team and that we were on pace for 50 wins after the Salmons trade.

So while it's not ideal to go small, it's also not ideal to suck.

Therein lies the conundrum.

Too good to let go, not good enough.

Every team has weaknesses, sure - but unless you cover it very well BG & Rose would be a GLARING weakness in the post season year after year. Championship teams keep their weaknesses to a minimum or have other assets/players to make up for it.

To Skiles' credit he understood this and we did the best with BG when we had Antonio Davis, Chandler, Curry IMO. AD kept them honest, C&C's weaknesses were downplayed and maximized which in turn opened it up for BG to be just deadly in the clutch.... *sigh* With Skiles riding the s#&t out of them,THAT team might have become something.

[Rerisen]

Every team has weaknesses, sure - but unless you cover it very well BG & Rose would be a GLARING weakness in the post season year after year.

That backcourt also presents mismatches to the other team as well though. Most bigger SG's can't keep up with Gordon and he can light them up. And of course we aren't going to find a better 3pt shooter than the 10th best all time in the league most likely.

I also don't think you can plan around Rose being so terrible on defense. Gordon made improvements, so should Rose be able to. If Rose never improves on D, the team isn't likely to go that deep into the playoffs anyway.

There are always tradeoffs. Whoever is filling Ben's shoes at SG for the next 3-5 years figures not to be as talented as him, or able to impact games in the same way. I think we have bought into the "SG is the least important position on the floor with Rose" dubious gameplan. I guess you just hope for the perfect fitting roleplayer that won't *lose* games for you, but also can't win them. We will see how easy that is to find, or how critical the downgrade is on offense when the team ends up relying on Deng to be one of its "big three" scorers. He's no Manu, Ray Allen, or Bynum. We better be damn good on defense.

[sonny]

Didn't our backcourt usually outplay the opposing team's last year?

The problem was that our frontcourt was horrible.

[kyrv]

Gordon must be some kind of arseface behind the scenes. Like, some kind of massive steaming arseface. Because if he isn't, then I'm fresh out of idea. He's not worth $11.6 mil a year, but he's TOTALLY worth $9 mil a year, and I don't see how anyone can believe otherwise. Especially anyone as close to the situation as the Bulls hierarchy.

Christmas party at JR's place + hard liquor + niece back home from college + giant bedroom.

Seriously. There has to be a sex scandal in there somewhere.

You can bet your danish arse Tiger is somehow involved.

[sonny]

Gordon must be some kind of arseface behind the scenes. Like, some kind of massive steaming arseface. Because if he isn't, then I'm fresh out of idea. He's not worth $11.6 mil a year, but he's TOTALLY worth $9 mil a year, and I don't see how anyone can believe otherwise. Especially anyone as close to the situation as the Bulls hierarchy.

Christmas party at JR's place + hard liquor + niece back home from college + giant bedroom.

Seriously. There has to be a sex scandal in there somewhere.

Maybe he got high and tried to cook a pizza on the stove again

[MAQ]

Didn't our backcourt usually outplay the opposing team's last year?

The problem was that our frontcourt was horrible.

it's done that since 2004-2005...the only year that it didnt do that, 07-08, was the year that we couldnt even be respectable...

[Beryl 96]

My God...

The question of the Rose/Gordon backcourt is the defensive prowess of such a backcourt, Gordon is no slouch in this catagory anymore, however Rose currently isn't very good on that end of the floor. There is the problem, as it stands now we would have a pretty poor backcourt in terms of defense. So the solution? No it wasn't to let Gordon walk and plug the fish in his place, the closest thing to a solution would've been and continues to be hope and help as much as the organization can(which they can't) that Rose develops into a proper defensive player. When we drafted Rose, we banked on him to become what we all hope he becomes, a PG version of Wade, and if he doesn't develop into a good defender, we're going to be in trouble no matter what.

[boogydown]

My God...

The question of the Rose/Gordon backcourt is the defensive prowess of such a backcourt, Gordon is no slouch in this catagory anymore, however Rose currently isn't very good on that end of the floor. There is the problem, as it stands now we would have a pretty poor backcourt in terms of defense. So the solution? No it wasn't to let Gordon walk and plug the fish in his place, the closest thing to a solution would've been and continues to be hope and help as much as the organization can(which they can't) that Rose develops into a proper defensive player. When we drafted Rose, we banked on him to become what we all hope he becomes, a PG version of Wade, and if he doesn't develop into a good defender, we're going to be in trouble no matter what.

Let me correct you.

Rose is a very bad defender. Hopefully he learns and soon because he is one of the worst at his position.

Gordon is one of the better PG defenders. When him and Hinrich played next to each other, Hinrich would guard 2's, Gordon would guard the 1. It worked. Put Gordon on a 2, and he becomes an awful defender.

We may not fix our scoring at the SG spot, but we have to have a SG who can defend the 2, and Gordon was not it.

[Rerisen]

We may not fix our scoring at the SG spot, but we have to have a SG who can defend the 2, and Gordon was not it.

The stats don't back you up. Last year opposing SG's had a 15.0 PER against us. That was tied for lowest with SF among our opposition. Every other position, we defended worse. Who do you think was guarding that player the majority of every game?

It was Ben Gordon, starting next to Derrick Rose. We weren't switching, Rose guarded the PG's (and we got lit up there, 17.0 PER at OPP PG).

Next someone will bring up the 2 or 3 games that an opposing team actually tried to post Ben Gordon up more than one time in a game to any success.

If you are so concerned about players guarding their position, we better be looking for a new Center and Power Forward first. Because that is where we got lit up last year, practically allowing opposing frontlines to average All-Star numbers. And its been happening again this year the last couple weeks.

[fisher]

Have you watched this Bulls team play? More importantly, have you checked out the rest of the NBA lately? No moves we make (short of landing Bosh and Lebron through some miracle trade involving Deng, Rose breaking out into elite PG status, and landing top 3 guy in the lotto) will put us over the Lakers, Celtics, or Magic during the next two years.

Right, but had we resigned Gordon and then done well in 2010 we may not have been two years away.

A starting lineup of:

Noah
2010 PF
Deng
Gordon
Rose

Is a team that can get to the finals.

In what conference? That team would be mauled by the Lakers, Magic, or Celtics (and perhaps Cavs and Nuggets) in a best of seven series.

[Rerisen]

Celtics are going to be another year older next year and may not be able to bring Allen back. Cavs are going to undergo some big changes whatever happens with LeBron.

Orlando would be favorites, but I'm not sure how scary the East will be next year. Have to see who goes where with regards to other FA, like Amare, Bosh, Boozer, JJ.

[fisher]

I don't get where the faith comes from in being able to easily replace good players. How many players has the team had since 98 that were as good or better than Gordon? Brand? Deng in 2007? 2 guys in 11 years?

Because the organization feels that they already have a great player in the future (Rose) and that they'll be able to get role players later. If Rose (and the 2010 guy) turn out to be great players, then letting Ben Gordon walk will no more cripple this franchise going forward than when the Bulls let Orlando Woolridge walk after Jordan's second season. If 2010 fails or Rose turns out to be average, then we were screwed anyway.

[fisher]

Celtics are going to be another year older next year and may not be able to bring Allen back. Cavs are going to undergo some big changes whatever happens with LeBron.

Celtics will still be a force the next fews year because of Rondo and the improvement of Kendrick Perkins, Glen Davis. Those guys beasted last year against Orlando even without KG. It's no longer a "big 3" with them.

Orlando would be favorites, but I'm not sure how scary the East will be next year. Have to see who goes where with regards to other FA, like Amare, Bosh, Boozer, JJ.

True. A Noah, 2010, Deng, Gordon, Rose lineup probably still doesn't make the finals in 2-3 years even if the 2010 guy was Lebron and the rest of the East remained the same.

[fisher]

I completely understand why Ben did not get that money. Is he worth 6/54, definitely. Is he worth 6/66, maybe.

People act like management made the decision to keep Hinrich over Gordon. I see it as they never planned to keep Gordon regardless if Hinrich was here or not. People need to stop comparing these two. It has nothing to do with Hinrich.

Now back to what I was saying. The Bulls clearly need defense while a shooter at that 2 guard spot. Does anyone have any idea outside the draft who a good option that would be?

Brandon Rush, though I doubt the Pacers would trade him.

[TheAdmiral]

Good. Ben Gordon isn't worth that money. You're not winning any championship paying Gordon that.

I hope this is your first and final post.

QFT.