Andrew Wamboldt on Ben Gordon

Now this is a guy who loves Gordon. Even more than I do. So it's a bit much, but he makes good points. Namely the one about how the Bulls behaved in these negotiations like they didn't really want Gordon at all.

about 1 year ago your friendly BullsBlogger 24 comments 1 recs |

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hmm, sounds familiar...

by Ibleedbullsred on Oct 2, 2008 11:04 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

huh?

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by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 2, 2008 11:27 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

He certainly has an opinion.

I especially like his “Reinsdorf is the greedy, not Gordon” line. I don’t buy it for one minute. Both are greedy, but Reinsdorf is one calling the shots.

He is certainly a big Gordon fan, perhaps more than he is a Bulls fan. Especially if he thought upping the Bulls offer would be in the best interest of the franchise long term.

"The whole leverage thing, it's a difficult thing to gauge" -Paxson

by Dionysus2.0 on Oct 2, 2008 11:34 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

so losing him for nothing

will be in the best interest of the franchise long term??

by NormVanBeer on Oct 2, 2008 11:37 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

It remains to be whether or not he will be lost.

He just signed a contract to play with the Bulls. He did not sign to play with another team.

"The whole leverage thing, it's a difficult thing to gauge" -Paxson

by Dionysus2.0 on Oct 2, 2008 11:50 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

i didn't say that he would either

but your comment suggests that not having him around is in the best interest of the team long term

by NormVanBeer on Oct 2, 2008 11:58 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

that's not what the comment says

i feel like the comment indicates that NOT upping the offer is in the best interest of the team… which insinuates that he thinks the LTD deal offered was fair if he decided to take it.

by Jaina on Oct 2, 2008 12:07 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I thought the Bulls pulled the long-term deal

Matt’s characterization of Andrew is probably appropriate (being bigger fan of Ben than most anyone) but that’s ok. At least IMO, we ought to be about something more than just the laundry. Gordon played a big part in our resurgence from utter craptitude. As such, he’s a part of who “the Bulls” are to me as a fan. He’s been a big part of the turnaround, and I don’t want to see him gone, nor do I like the approach the Bulls have taken with him.

I mean, I understand if a guy is just at complete loggerheads with the team’s future. Like Skiles. I appreciate Skiles role in winning, but he was allowed to run amok and was a roadblock to progress at the end. But this is not the case here. Gordon is a quality SG and as far as I can tell, a pretty good fit going forward. Likewise (as someone mentioned in another thread) Chandler.

I don’t like seeing guys that I’ve come to like and root for get the shaft. Simple as that. It’s even worse when it looks short-sighted going forward.

by Sports2 on Oct 2, 2008 1:53 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

interesting that you read more about

Paxson getting leeway for ‘bringing the Bulls back’, yet someone like Gordon doesn’t.

(I suppose this could count for Hinrich too, but oh god was he bad)

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by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 2, 2008 2:05 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

you read it differently than I did

that’s definitely for sure

by NormVanBeer on Oct 2, 2008 2:01 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

not thinking it was in the team's best interest to up the offer

is not the opposite of thinking it is in the team’s best interest to lose him for nothing. those don’t even correlate whatsoever. someone may think both of those things, but i’m certainly in the camp where i wouldn’t have wanted the offer upped (at least very much) but i certainly don’t want to lose him for nothing. i’d have loved to see him sign for the contract they offered.

by Jaina on Oct 2, 2008 2:33 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

oh, and i'd also like to point out

that i don’t endorse how the bulls handled this situation. but it is what it is at this point.

by Jaina on Oct 2, 2008 2:36 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think it is not worth the risk of losing him for nothing

to be so firm with the offer. As I said when this mess started in the offseason, it’s actually the Bulls with no leverage.

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by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 2, 2008 2:41 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

i've never meant to insinuate

that i thought the bulls handled this the best, but i understand why it turned out the way it did. if gordon and the bulls were so far apart anyways, why offer a contract that goes over the tax even just a little? he’s clearly not worth it to them, especially since indications pointed to him wanting a deng sized contract at the minimum.

if he can earn it next year, good luck to him. i’ve always liked ben and i want to see him succeed, i just don’t see him commanding that type of contract anywhere, not just with the bulls.

by Jaina on Oct 2, 2008 2:55 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

again

it’s how u read it…but I digress. Anyway you look at it, it’s a mess in my books

by NormVanBeer on Oct 2, 2008 2:58 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

not gonna disagree there.

i wish it could have turned out differently.

by Jaina on Oct 2, 2008 3:56 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

i dont know

bg is one of my favorite players in the league…i love his game and his attitude, but i think he is not so smart for rejecting two very nice offers. 10 mil a year is 10 mil a year. how can you reject that? especially when realistically no teams out there are going to offer you that much. ever. the only way bg will get that kind of money anywhere else is if he has an iverson type of year offensively. does he have that season in him? i hope so, but i am not going to hold my breath. you can’t just blame the bulls management for not getting this done, they made a good, totally reasonable offer. i want bg to stick around, but i dont want the bulls to overpay people anymore, that seems to be a treacherous road in the NBA with guaranteed contracts and having to match salaries in trades. giving bg a 70 mil contract is severely overpaying him. how can people be critical of the bulls for overpaying noc, which they did, and then even more critical of the bulls for not overpaying bg. hmmmm…anyway, i just want bg to stay a bull, and if they have to sit down at the negotiating table next year again, so be it, as long as it ends with bg happy and in a bulls uniform for years to come.

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE

by CONOR6 on Oct 2, 2008 3:42 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

I'd argue

Gordon is the type of player you can overpay for because even at his floor he’s pretty good. Nocioni didn’t have that kind of ceiling.

And perhaps more important, the Bulls have Luol Deng at the 3, meaning you knew Nocioni would be on the bench. In a sensible world Gordon would be a starter, but even under the 6th man superstition role he’d be more of a contributor than Noc.

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by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 2, 2008 3:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

you are right

noc’s contract is awful, i dont have to tell you that…but, my point was simply i dont place the blame squarely on the bulls for not wanting to overpay bg, and that bg is delusional if he thinks there is a team out there that will pay him more than 11 mil a year. he will have to improve drastically and have an all star year.

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE

by CONOR6 on Oct 2, 2008 3:56 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Except he couldn't win the starting job.

On a 33 win team last season. Nor on a 47 win playoff team his rookie year. Nor could he stick as a starter any season in the NBA.

He is a talented 6th man. So talented in fact, that he won the award for being the best 6th man in the entire NBA.

"The whole leverage thing, it's a difficult thing to gauge" -Paxson

by Dionysus2.0 on Oct 2, 2008 11:16 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

there was no way to win the job

it’s an appointment.

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by your friendly BullsBlogger on Oct 3, 2008 11:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

He wasn't better than Larry Hughes or Chris Duhon?

Really? Gordon definitely “earned” it. Even under Skiles he “earned” it; Skiles wasn’t the one who benched him. Boylan was. And if you’re taking his evaluation of players as what Gordon really is, you’re looking in the wrong place.

And all of Paxson’s talk was simply an attempt to drive down Gordon’s worth. He offered Gordon $10 million a year last year. You don’t offer that to a someone you know is a 6th man. You don’t even offer the $9 million they offered this year. And you ESPECIALLY don’t offer $9 million/yr to someone you think is a bench player when you already have an $8 million a year bench player in Nocioni.

Gordon isn’t starting caliber for EVERY team in the league. Few players are. He could do it w/ a ball-handling SG (like Wade or Roy) or a PG who can defend SGs like Hinrich or Kidd. Obviously, any backcourt w/ Gordon will not be known for its defense. It will be known for it’s offense, though.

by tyger1147 on Oct 3, 2008 12:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

What's missing is how this works for the team...

Compared to what an innovative GM might have done….Bulls seemed to demonstrate how NOT to get a contract done.

They pulled the LTD off the table with negotiating time still available, which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever in terms of what’s good for the team.

And the worst part of this is, when we look back to what was being said by Pax just after the draft, and July 1 about the priority of getting the contracts done with both Deng and Gordon….so that, in essence, Heinrich could be moved for frontcourt help, what occurred was close to an utter failure given stated priorities.

And in practical terms, this year is now officially another version of last year’s roster mess going into the first game. Except now, we know that neither Gordon nor Heinrich can be traded for frontcourt help this year.

So, from a strategic point of view, Bulls brainrust has appeared to have failed dramatically. The question needs to be asked, why the hey did they act out this scenario the way they did? What is the REAL plan they are unfolding? Is there a plan??

by Cholla on Oct 3, 2008 12:02 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Did you actually watch Gordon's play last year

It is clear that you either no very little about the game of basketball, or that you didn’t watch the Bulls in general and Gordon in particular last season. I watched every minute of every game, (painfull). Mope a Dope Gordon was the most infuriating of all Bulls players last season, with Hangdog Hinrich right behind.

Gordon cannot play point guard in the NBA period. The only guard that you might be able to pair him with is Michael Jordan, and Jordan would probably kill him because of his slacker attitude and stoner brain deadedness.

Gordon is a stat sheet stuffer against lousy teams, see the Denver and Milwaukee games toward the end of last season. Any good defensive team, the type that gets past the first round of the playoffs shut him down and make him look like a clown.

As an unrestricted FA next summer Gordon will be fortunate the get the full mid-level exception, maybe $1 more from a bad team looking to make a move just to say that they made a move. Nobody, even in the insane NBA is giving Gordon $12-$13 million per season. Both of the Bulls offers are the most generous that he will ever receive.

by BigWay on Oct 17, 2008 2:04 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs