Blame Rasho wrote:My thing is that I would be reluctant to give a guy that amount of money if he is not able to significantly contribute in more than one area. It is just my personal belief.
I respect that. But Ben does do more than score. He's somewhat effective at getting the offense going as a distributor if necessary. His major strenght obviously is his scoring. But he does more.
What happens when you have a bad shooting night? What else can you do to make up for that shortcoming that night? You can pass, defend, hell go to the line and make a difference.
Getting to the line is an interesting point. We all agree Luol Deng is valued fairly high, right? Using 06/07 stats (as both players were injured last season)
Deng = 4.3 ATT
Gordon = 5.4 ATT
In fact, you could make the argument that Gordon is a lot better at maintaining some kind of offense threat, than Deng. Luol basically becomes invisible and doesn't even attempt to create something, himself. That's not the case for Gordon, as he's far more aggresive.
Overall I agree with you that Ben should try to up that FT average to 8 attemtps a game, since that would open up his offense a lot more. All I'm saying, is it's ver hard for Ben to do 'right' in anyones eyes, whereas Luol basically can do no wrong. This is also a conversation often brought up on the Bulls board.
I don't think he does that enough. I think he regressed this past year and it is hard to justify a 10 million dollar contract after a bad year.
See, this I can go aboard with. But when you should also consider Luol overpaid. Both declined (mostly due to injuries & chemistry issues) and will likely have a bounce-back season. But yes, this is a point I can go along with.
Example to illustrate would be to just compare his FTA and his 3FGA's this past year and the year before.
There's no question last season was a bad one. I'm not disagreeing. But if we take a look at FTA & 3FGA, we see J.R Smith with 178 versus 390. Considering he doesn't even play defense or adds anything when it comes to rebounding (2.1) or passing (1.7) I'd say 5/49 compared to 2/15 should be considered fair for Gordon at the very least.
I don't follow the Bulls regilously but I did notice that Ben didn't attack the basket as much, and was much more of an outside shooter than usual. He has this nice little effective teardrop and can* get to the rim but is seemed to me that he settled too much. It is not to say that Gordon isn't a bad player. He is a remarkable scorer and shooter but it is alot of money to just fork over in my opinion who I think settled too often for my likening.
You're correct. This happened this past season. But overall that's never been the issue with him. This was the first season where his shot-selection was suspect. Hell, everyone's shooting went south last season. Deng's also.
Overall, I think my main problem is how quick people are to write off Gordon but always give Luol a free pass. Right now, both players should be in the same ballpark when it comes to contracts.
Deng adds things that Gordon doesn't, but Gordon most certainly adds things Deng can't. It goes both ways, which is why I get a bit irritated.
Nothing against you. Your posts about Chicago seems much more educated than 99% of the non-Bulls fans around here. I just disagree with a few points about Ben.
