The players are selfish for wanting to secure long term committment from their employers? Yeah, selfish assholes! Does Tim Duncan play for free? What kind of logic is this?

No one said the Bulls had to break the bank for Ben and Lou. You pay them a fair market value, which after last season may not be as high as previously thought. That doesn’t mean you can be cheap bastards and act like the Bulls are a hotshot organization that can just be so obtuse to their players.

I hope Paxson isn’t this dense when it comes to contract negotiations. Get these deals over with soon, there is still a lot of questions that have to be answered about this roster.

Paxson really should just offer up the same amount as last year, and tell them that this time, it’s respectable.

you articulated pretty well how i felt when i read the article.

...is that about 85%* of the reporters (incl. K.C. Johnson, Chad Ford and others) are simply claiming as fact that Deng turned down either $57.5 mil extension or “well-over $50 million”. Last Summer and most of the winter, it was always worded “reportedly” or “sources say” or what-not, but now it’s simply being reported as:

“Gordon and Deng turned down extensions last year of $50 and $57.5 million, respectively, and will have trouble finding that money again.” I think I remember Chad Ford saying that. I’d like to know why so many are reporting this as fact when we all read Gordon’s take from Arenas’s blog that they were given take-it-or-leave-it, not-very-great offers.

I have a feeling he knows what Pax is thinking, and isn’t guessing.

had me searching on google’s WAP page to see if the Daily Herald or Sun-Times has a WAP version of their website.

I did recall that the 57.5 offer was to Gordon and the 50 offer was to Deng, but KC has now switched that order.

That I’m not the only one with John Malkovich as Teddy KGB in “Rounders” saying “Pay the man his money” stuck in my head this morning?

Every day that goes by without word of these contract extensions – or at least word of substantive discussions – just makes me more nervous and depressed that we’re going to take a step backwards this free agency season, after our fortuitous two step-forward Lottery bonanza.

"…it’s possible the Bulls believe…that both players are worth more than the 5 years and $50 million they were offered last season."

This, I think is what makes this contract season so interesting for both players. Last year, Paxson came right out and said that the contracts offered to Gordon and Deng were on the low end dollar-wise…but that the added ‘security’ value provided by getting those offers a year early offset the lightness in ‘dollar’ value—with the end result being that the offers were fair.

Now it’s a year later. Based on what Paxson said last year, both players might reasonably expect higher offers now. They took on the added risk of playing without an extension in favor of the perceived trade-off of more dollars this year.

The problem is…the play of each regressed…and they each missed significant playing time due to injuries, especially Deng, who was only healthy enough to play in 77% of the team’s games (Gordon, even with his more publicized "I won’t play until I’m completely healthy" pronouncement, played in 88% of the games).

Matt, if I read you right, you are suggesting Paxson put the same offer back on the table. Actually, all things being equal, based on Paxson’s public explanation, that ‘same’ offer should be a more lucrative offer.

But are all things equal? Implicit in Paxson’s attempt to tie up both players a year early was the expectation that each would improve in his 4th year, that the market for each would improve, and that in order to keep them the Bulls would have to pay more in 2008 than they would have in 20007. Have things worked out that way?

The only way to tell is to let the market dictate. Paxson took a risk in not meeting their asking prices last year—that risk was that the market might be higher this year. The players took a risk in that the ‘security’ represented by taking last years offer really was worth something. Now we find out.

Let the offers come. My guess, with Deng’s and Gordon’s performance leveling off last year, coupled with the league-in-general’s move toward a more frugal stance on contracts, is that similar-or even fewer-dollars will get the deal done for both.