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I have seen Ben Gordon's contract offer from the Pistons reported as high as $60 million. Unless there are some incentive clauses I don''t know about, the total value of the deal should fall just short of $55 million. He will start at $9 million next season.

PistonPowered figures with max raises this means the Gordon contract is (in millions): $9/$9.72/$10.44/$11.16/$11.88

In conclusion, the Bulls suck and next year doesn't matter.

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Kevin Arnovitz On What Ben Gordon's Departure Means for Derrick Rose

about 5 hours ago Ozzie Montana comment 21 comments 1 recs

Gordon Interview with Waddle and Silvy

Gives his feelings on VDN.

1 day ago J Theory comment 46 comments 0 recs

When I spoke to Ben Gordon late Wednesday, after he agreed to a free-agent deal with Detroit, one comment he made was that he felt Bulls fans had been "cheated."

He didn’t elaborate, but I think he was referring to how the Bulls have given away some quality players in recent years to keep the payroll modest.

Mike McGraw. Mostly just putting a new thread up, but this is interesting. So was another Gordon quote saying "I'm going to a situation now where winning is the No. 1 priority."

1 day ago your friendly BullsBlogger comment 150 comments 0 recs

Ben Gordon is a Piston. We're stuck being Bulls fans.

by your friendly BullsBlogger on Jul 1, 2009 10:32 PM CDT Comment 485 comments

Don't worry. I'm not going to do what everyone thinks I'm going to do...and just flip out.

I'm kidding, of course. Lets rant:

First, this is not a Detroit Pistons or a Ben Gordon blog. I can't dedicate much (now...this may be Blog-A-Ben for a few weeks) as to how the Pistons are better off after giving the former Bulls guard a 5 year, ~$55m contract, or how Gordon can be more successful (for himself and team-wise) there.

He sure did quite well for himself financially, and doesn't look so 'stupid' for turning down previous offers.

This is about the Bulls, the team we're unforunately obligated (in however weird way we justify it) to root for. How they completely bungled how to handle a young and very good player, to an unprecendented level.

And I mean unprecedented: last summer Ben Gordon was the best player (under the current rookie salary rules) ever to take the Qualifying Offer. And he's now the best player to walk from the organization that drafted him, 5 years ago.

I'm writing this before the Bulls and others spin (or at least before I read it) the logistics of his departure, but I've been fearing for months that it'd be a situation like this where Gordon took an offer quickly and there'd be no matching 'process' for the Bulls to undergo. The Bulls earned no right for Gordon to let them do so.

Or maybe he did give the Bulls a chance to match and they chose not to. It's certainly a rich deal, but an offer the Bulls should've made themselves.

Even if this contract, in a vacuum, is overpaying Gordon, this is what the Bulls risked by not signing him the previous two seasons. They talk all the time about the benefits of signing early extensions to hedge against injury (hello, Luol Deng!) or poor play (Kurt!). Well it goes the other way too: if the team doesn't get the extensions done early, they risk getting outbid. And apparently Ben Gordon is worth $11m a season, as it only takes one team to make it truth. And this isn't a true market where the Bulls can just go out and pay for a replacement. The Bulls knew this was a risk, and still lowballed (if you look at his negotiations in relation to Deng, Hinrich, and Noc) Gordon last summer, and then pulled the offer after Gordon accepted it.

(Read that last sentence again in case you feel your anger subsiding, that should do the trick to get it back.)

The fact that their payroll was already careerning towards the luxury tax line is a result of mistakes from the past. The Ben Wallace signing still lingers on this team in the form of dead money. Luol Deng received a bit more than he deserved, and that was when healthy. Kirk Hinrich became an overpaid backup the second the Bulls won the lottery. But that doesn't mean they have to try and rectify those mistakes by letting Gordon go. They have over $25m in expiring contracts (Miller/Thomas/James) coming off the books at the end of the year. That's one season of paying the luxury tax, after a decade of record profits fueled by sellout crowds watching rookie contracts.

Gordon's contract is for his prime seasons. There is a fairly high floor as to how he'll perform during that time. Say he's really a $9m player in terms of production. He's then overpaid a bit. He'd be on a Bulls team with other guys who are likely overpaid a bit under that standard. But on the court it's a lot of talent. And that's how you win a title, by having the best team. Not by having the least overpaid players.

All indications were that the basketball people in the Organization wanted to keep Gordon. It was the guy signing the checks who wasn't so sure. So what Jerry Reinsdorf's team (I should say his investment. The White Sox are his team) gets for 'not overpaying' Ben Gordon is...being worse. Not having a player to trade in a future move for a frontcourt star. Not having a player remaining after they package multiple players for that star. Let him go with nothing to show for themselves. No matter how they compensate with the current group it won't be as good as if they kept everybody.

And I can't see them doing anything the rest of this offseason if it means going over the tax, as then why not just keep Ben Gordon? What this non-move means is that the Bulls do not care about winning. Not this year. Likely not for several years. They are far away from contention, and it's simply amazing that they think they're in any position to let talent walk, let alone their best player of the past 5 years. They're signalling that they're content to take one shot in Derrick Rose's prime, which means we can't really give a care about anyone else on the roster. Maybe Luol Deng? Joakim Noah? They're already starting to do with Tyrus Thomas what happened with Gordon years ago. Everyone else is going to be gone by the time this team is going for a title. Not winning one, or competing for one, but merely having a plan to try and go for one.

(And they certainly do not have the coach (lowest paid in the league, mind you) that will get them any closer to that level. They don't even have a coach who can properly run the team to the level where we even know if their young players are good enough to keep.)

Why shouldn't I just wait for 2010 if this team clearly is? The Bulls can feel free to laugh back at me, since clearly I'm not so smart either after putting down a deposit for next year's (partial, please.) season tickets.

And if 2010 is the plan, really go for it. Deal Hinrich now for expirings. Tell us that this is a 'transition' (nicer way to say 'rebuilding' or 'going cheap, you suckers!'), talk a big game and wait for the full-boat free agents to come. This is a team that just told the league they do not like spending money on their best players. That's always an attractive quality in a franchise that's courting free agents. Just give me a minute while I get Benny and the Luvabulls before we head to the airport and greet the lucky fellas.

Wait, not a minute, a whole goddamned year.

485 comments | 10 recs |

The Pistons have reached deal in principle with Ben Gordon

[From the FanShots. More later, count on it. -ed.]

The Pistons have reached deal in principle with Bulls guard Ben Gordon, a source with knowledge of talks tells Y! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski

1 day ago Sports2 comment 792 comments 0 recs

One of the bigger names remaining, Chicago Bulls free agent guard Ben Gordon, didn't get an offer in the early hours Wednesday, but will go to Detroit Wednesday morning to visit with the Pistons, who are expected to offer the fifth-year shooting guard a multi-year contract between $10 and $11 million annually.

- David Aldridge.

Hopefully on his visit Ben sees dozens of cars on fire and realizes Detroit is no place to be.

2 days ago your friendly BullsBlogger comment 387 comments 0 recs

On the eve of Ben Gordon's free agency

by your friendly BullsBlogger on Jun 30, 2009 11:02 PM CDT Comment 329 comments

via 1.bp.blogspot.com

View full size photo uploaded June 30, 2009

(Actually, it's minutes away as I type this.)

We've seen several reports trickle out over the past few weeks about the Pistons interest in Ben Gordon. The latest being Chris Broussard throwing out the $10-11m offer from Detroit, though maintaining that the Bulls and Gordon's mutual interest will keep Ben a Bull.

It'll be very interesting to see how fast things play out from both Detroit's and the Bulls' perspective. Things have changed for the Pistons in the past 24 hours: Michael Curry has been fired (and that was rumored to be in part to placate incumbent SG Rip Hamilton), and Carlos Boozer will not opt out of his contract with the Jazz (they could still trade for him, however). Will they be agressive and target Gordon immediately? Does Curry's firing mean a dedication to Hamilton, a well-paid player at the same position as Gordon? Will they wait and see what the Bulls do first?

And what exactly will the Bulls do? We've all read that they want Ben back, but it's a contract offer that truly talks. They haven't made any cost-saving trades to free up money to sign him under the tax. They apparently have not even talked to him since the end of the season.

When free agency begins, the Bulls can choose to pursue Gordon, or stick with the 'wait and see on the market' approach that lasted all through last summer. Except this time, Gordon does not have to wait. Which is especially bad from the Bulls standpoint, as they love 'process' (which seems to consist of a lot of waiting). I can certainly see a scenario where Detroit's offer is made (or OKC?), and Gordon immediately takes it.

Broussard maintains in his report that the Bulls need to come 'anywhere close' to an opposing team's offer for Ben to stay, as he ultimately wants to return to Chicago. Maybe he would give the Bulls the tiebreaker (I have to believe the money has to be fairly close, however) in order to stay with the only team he's known. The previous two summers of negotiations have been acrimonious, but both the Bulls and Gordon were fairly professional when the games began: the Bulls started Gordon more than at any time in his career, and he responed with a very good season.

But it's only a 'tie' to break if the Bulls actually make an offer. If Gar Paxdorf can't get its story straight, I don't see the incentive for Gordon to wait on them. Last time he waited the Bulls pulled their offer.

So I won't believe for a second that the Bulls 'really wanted' Ben Gordon back (and if I'm not being clear: they should want him back) if they tell us Gordon never gave them the chance to match. The Bulls lost that right by failing to sign him up to this point. It's possible that previous offers Ben rejected will never come again, and he'll lose the negotiation. If there is no Detroit offer, and with no options Ben comes back for a more modest contract, the Bulls make out very well. But if Gordon gets that offer from Detroit, even if it's less than what he once turned down: Gordon loses, and the Bulls lose. And since we're Bulls fans, we lose too.

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