The Irony of the Ben Gordon Trade

[epheisey]

Ben Gordon was/is a shooter. A shooting guard that can stretch the floor and hit the three.

The Pistons are lacking a shooter. Particularly one that could stretch the floor and hit a three.

Now granted, he was a huge liability on defense and was relatively small for a 2 guard.

To have given up a 1st round draft pick (most likely in what will be the deepest draft in a decade) to move a player that we could actually use...Joe D at his finest.

Not to mention what keeping him would have meant as far as salary cap limitations and what players we most likely wouldn't have acquired last offseason.

[sfballa13]

The trade that should have been made was: Charlie V, Jerebko, 1st rounder not Ben Gordon

Kept Stuckey in the starting line up with BG as his back up

Draft MCW

Dumars still signs Smith and Bynum

MCW / Bynum
Stuckey / BG
Smith / Singler
Monroe
Drummond

At least we would have gotten rid of Jerebko

Dumars is a moron and an overall piece of shittt and this trade does nothing but shine a spotlight on that fact

[Joe Berry]

Ben Gordon also is a piece of $hit who didn't give a **** about playing professional basketball anymore since Joe D gave him 55 million dollars. There is reason he is not even a backup SG for the Bobcats anymore, he just doesn't give a ****. He is by no means a useful player anymore.
I blame Gores more for this, he could have amnestied BG. Anyway signing Smith and probably losing the pick set back this franchise AGAIN. Dumars has done so much damage, it will be hard for a new GM to clean up that mess.

[sfballa13]

Ben Gordon also is a piece of $hit who didn't give a **** about playing professional basketball anymore since Joe D gave him 55 million dollars. There is reason he is not even a backup SG for the Bobcats anymore, he just doesn't give a ****. He is by no means a useful player anymore.
I blame Gores more for this, he could have amnestied BG. Anyway signing Smith and probably losing the pick set back this franchise AGAIN. Dumars has done so much damage, it will be hard for a new GM to clean up that mess.

Ben Gordon was completely and utterly misused by the Pistons and his mental and emotional state was destroyed as well.

Same exact thing happened to Iverson when he came to Detroit.

Instead of worrying about playing BG/Iverson were worried about splitting time with one of the biggest cancers the league has ever seen in Rip. He destroyed our team chemistry, undermined the coaching staff, and destroyed the careers of an all time NBA great in Iverson and a decent-above average player in Gordon. Best part about it all was he was doing this AFTER he got big money from Dumars. Both Ivo and BG had great YEARS not year before they came to Detroit, there was no reason for them to completely fall off the face of the planet when they arrived to Detroit.

The stunts Rip pulled in his last years of a Pistons were despicable (his refusal to accept a buyout to join the Bulls just to screw the franchise that had paid him so handsomely is disgusting and is one of the reasons i hope he never gets his number retired for the Pistons). His piss poor primadona attitude is main reason he is not in the NBA any longer. You think veterans like Fischer and Hedo and other guys are actually better than him?? Nope. I have no sympathy for that a-hole **** Rip. Even when he played with fricking Michael Jordan he believed he was better than him and that was as a rookie and younger player what a JOKE.

Both Iverson and BG were seen playing basketball at Lifetime and other gyms especially Ben Gordon. BG was depressed and fed up with the organization and inept coaching staff. I hate him for taking our cap space and not trying hard but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

Our team is notorious for mismanaging players: Prince (at first), Okur, Afflalo, Amir, Darko (why didnt he have a designated baby sitter and big man coach since day 1 that drives me crazy to this day no matter how lazy he was/is, that would have been extremely helpful), Iverson, Ben Gordon, the list goes on and on to now include Monroe and Drummond who have to sacrifice shots to KCP, Jennings, Smith, and WILL BYNUM.

People make fun of the Knicks and the Cavs but when you look our team closely in the years after our first championship, we are worse off and it's laughable and depressing how badly this team has been run.

[Piston Pete]

So stupid to give up a pick to rid ourselves of a contract that could have been amnestied....

[ImHeisenberg]

The pick is all I care about. Ben Gordon stopped playing hard once he got paid.

Sure, you can make up all kinds of excuses about why he stopped playing hard due to the Pistons franchise being inept, but the fact remains he was paid to play hard and be one of the top performing players and he did not deliver upon it.

Losing the pick is truly the kick in the pants that we'll be feeling for the next decade, if it's a lottery pick.

[MrBigShot]

It's partially BG's fault, and partially our fault for completely misusing him. I remember being so frustrated that in stretches Kuester would just leave BG on the floor without running any isos or screens for him...

The pick was the real issue with the trade though. I still blame Gores for that. Would've been better to just amnesty BG.

[E-Z]

So stupid to give up a pick to rid ourselves of a contract that could have been amnestied....

Thanks to a frugal owner and an incompetent GM.

[engelbert321]

I hated trading the pick before and I especially hate it now. Thanks to Gores and Dumars.

[theBigLip]

Where to start? Many, many events tied together.

1) Trade Billups for AI - actually a GOOD move. Faster PGs like CP3 were starting to dominate, Billups was starting to look old and expensive, so get AI's expiring and combine it with Sheed's huge expiring, and we'll have cap room to get some good free agents. Good move.

2) Use above mentioned cap space to get Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. BAD move. VERY BAD move. It wasn't just that we signed them - we apparently got in a bidding war with ourselves and hugely overpaid. Had we paid each of them half of their contracts (we probably still could have signed them) and just expected them to be role players (which they both were), that would have been more palatable. Better yet would have been to keep the cap room and use it to facilitate trades and pick up assets, or keep it for the following year when all the big free agents came out. Bad move.

3) Trade Gordon and protected pick to Charlotte for Maggette and his expiring contract. Debatable move, but I'll say GOOD move. Getting rid of Gordon's contract and trading Prince and we're lining up to do some serious free agent shopping in the summer of 2013. We got some promising young players, and if we get some good free agents, we'll certainly be a playoff team. Therefore the pick should be in the high teens and well worth getting out from Gordon's contract and retooling our team. Good move.

4) Signing Josh Smith (and to a lessor extent, sign/trade of Jennings). Obviously, BAD move. Giving Dumars cap space is like giving drunk sailors hundred dollar bills in front of some foreign ports whore houses. The money is going to disappear, and when you wake up the next morning after having spent it all, you wonder what the hell happened. We should have got a legit SF instead of Smith. Instead, we gave him a huge contract, watched him play out of position and become the worst volume shooter in the NBA this year. What should have been a 5-8 seed in the playoffs and giving a #18-20 pick to Charlotte has turned into a nightmare. Bad move.

Again, doing those trades to get cap space wasn't the problem. They were risky, but I think solid trades. But what Dumars did with the cap space (TWICE!) is what really f--ked us.

[engelbert321]

Our 2014 pick will most likely be in the 9-13 range, and it's going to Charlotte. Us, on the other hand, will get to experience this roller coaster drama all over again next season!!

[gusman]

Ben Gordon also is a piece of $hit who didn't give a **** about playing professional basketball anymore since Joe D gave him 55 million dollars. There is reason he is not even a backup SG for the Bobcats anymore, he just doesn't give a ****. He is by no means a useful player anymore.
I blame Gores more for this, he could have amnestied BG. Anyway signing Smith and probably losing the pick set back this franchise AGAIN. Dumars has done so much damage, it will be hard for a new GM to clean up that mess.

Ben Gordon was completely and utterly misused by the Pistons and his mental and emotional state was destroyed as well.

Same exact thing happened to Iverson when he came to Detroit.

Instead of worrying about playing BG/Iverson were worried about splitting time with one of the biggest cancers the league has ever seen in Rip. He destroyed our team chemistry, undermined the coaching staff, and destroyed the careers of an all time NBA great in Iverson and a decent-above average player in Gordon. Best part about it all was he was doing this AFTER he got big money from Dumars. Both Ivo and BG had great YEARS not year before they came to Detroit, there was no reason for them to completely fall off the face of the planet when they arrived to Detroit.

The stunts Rip pulled in his last years of a Pistons were despicable (his refusal to accept a buyout to join the Bulls just to screw the franchise that had paid him so handsomely is disgusting and is one of the reasons i hope he never gets his number retired for the Pistons). His piss poor primadona attitude is main reason he is not in the NBA any longer. You think veterans like Fischer and Hedo and other guys are actually better than him?? Nope. I have no sympathy for that a-hole **** Rip. Even when he played with fricking Michael Jordan he believed he was better than him and that was as a rookie and younger player what a JOKE.

Both Iverson and BG were seen playing basketball at Lifetime and other gyms especially Ben Gordon. BG was depressed and fed up with the organization and inept coaching staff. I hate him for taking our cap space and not trying hard but it's not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

Our team is notorious for mismanaging players: Prince (at first), Okur, Afflalo, Amir, Darko (why didnt he have a designated baby sitter and big man coach since day 1 that drives me crazy to this day no matter how lazy he was/is, that would have been extremely helpful), Iverson, Ben Gordon, the list goes on and on to now include Monroe and Drummond who have to sacrifice shots to KCP, Jennings, Smith, and WILL BYNUM.

People make fun of the Knicks and the Cavs but when you look our team closely in the years after our first championship, we are worse off and it's laughable and depressing how badly this team has been run.

Good read

[E-Z]

Where to start? Many, many events tied together.

1) Trade Billups for AI - actually a GOOD move. Faster PGs like CP3 were starting to dominate, Billups was starting to look old and expensive, so get AI's expiring and combine it with Sheed's huge expiring, and we'll have cap room to get some good free agents. Good move.

2) Use above mentioned cap space to get Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. BAD move. VERY BAD move. It wasn't just that we signed them - we apparently got in a bidding war with ourselves and hugely overpaid. Had we paid each of them half of their contracts (we probably still could have signed them) and just expected them to be role players (which they both were), that would have been more palatable. Better yet would have been to keep the cap room and use it to facilitate trades and pick up assets, or keep it for the following year when all the big free agents came out. Bad move.

3) Trade Gordon and protected pick to Charlotte for Maggette and his expiring contract. Debatable move, but I'll say GOOD move. Getting rid of Gordon's contract and trading Prince and we're lining up to do some serious free agent shopping in the summer of 2013. We got some promising young players, and if we get some good free agents, we'll certainly be a playoff team. Therefore the pick should be in the high teens and well worth getting out from Gordon's contract and retooling our team. Good move.

4) Signing Josh Smith (and to a lessor extent, sign/trade of Jennings). Obviously, BAD move. Giving Dumars cap space is like giving drunk sailors hundred dollar bills in front of some foreign ports whore houses. The money is going to disappear, and when you wake up the next morning after having spent it all, you wonder what the hell happened. We should have got a legit SF instead of Smith. Instead, we gave him a huge contract, watched him play out of position and become the worst volume shooter in the NBA this year. What should have been a 5-8 seed in the playoffs and giving a #18-20 pick to Charlotte has turned into a nightmare. Bad move.

Again, doing those trades to get cap space wasn't the problem. They were risky, but I think solid trades. But what Dumars did with the cap space (TWICE!) is what really f--ked us.

Joe Dumars is a man who likes to gamble and take high risks these days. What happened to the days of those ho-hum signings, trades, and drafts, that eventually created a powerhouse? Today, he's the complete opposite of who he was then.

I'm an advocate of low-risk investments at this stage. Especially when there's a top 20 talent on the team right now.

[theBigLip]

E-Z-

The low risk strategy would seem very logical. Why blow the money on Smith when this team isn't going to be elite this year. Solid pickups that will age well with Monroe and Drummond is the right thing. We still have this summer. Hopefully we have a new GM making those moves.

[DCintheD]

We really need Gores to hire the right GM to fix this sh^t...

[chrbal]

Sorry I'm not going to read the posts before I reply. There is no irony. You had an AMNESTY option sitting there where we could've washed our hands on it, but who do we use that on....Oh wait, no one. We're handed a ****ing mulligan on his contract and let it go to waste.

The only irony is knowing full well that every way Joe handled and didn't (Not using the amnesty) will probably be the basis for Gores crony speech to Joe D why hes fired.

[Invictus88]

Ben Gordon also is a piece of $hit who didn't give a **** about playing professional basketball anymore since Joe D gave him 55 million dollars. There is reason he is not even a backup SG for the Bobcats anymore, he just doesn't give a ****. He is by no means a useful player anymore.
I blame Gores more for this, he could have amnestied BG. Anyway signing Smith and probably losing the pick set back this franchise AGAIN. Dumars has done so much damage, it will be hard for a new GM to clean up that mess.

Ben Gordon was completely and utterly misused by the Pistons and his mental and emotional state was destroyed as well.

Same exact thing happened to Iverson when he came to Detroit.

Umm... AI was a complete and total headcase prior to ever setting foot in Detroit. You really can't blame that aspect on the Pistons.

As for BG, he was a bad fit anywhere on any team because he was simply too short to play both sides of the SG role effectively. The problem wasn't that he was 'misused' by the Pistons because that would have happened anywhere. The problem was that he was signed.

[Laimbeer]

This one is 100% on Gores for being too cheap.

[piston1423]

I wonder what it would be like had we traded Rip instead of Chauncey, signed Gordon/ Ben Wallace, resigned Sheed and Dyess and never traded Johnson or Afflalo. This would of been a decent team.

Billups/Bynum
Gordon/Stuckey
Prince/Afflalo
R.Wallace/Johnson
B. Wallace/Mcdyess

Of course, we probably never end up getting Drummond or Monroe.

[chrbal]

within about a week the pistons extended rip and trade Chauncey. I don't see how you extend Rip, when you had to have known you were trading Chauncey. That off-season also had a lot of good "we want to save cash, you want a 1st round pick?" type trades. It almost gets bothersome once you start down that path.