however, i don’t think redd is really deserving of 16-17, tbh.

before this season, when contracts were being decided, i always thought of about 9million for gordon and 11 for deng.

also, no one knows how gordon might have played if he had gotten the money, cause the guy is playing for his contract right now.

i’ve always been lukewarm on gordon but i certainly appreciate his strengths, and would never think he’s a MLE type guy.

Sure, he could go to a team in a better or worse situation for Gordon, but that’s the luck of the draw.

My impression is that it’s some kind of personal loyalty thing. A “Gordon should be thankful he’s on the Bulls and Jerry Reinsdorf was kind enough to offer to let him stay in the first place” sort of thing.

However, the change in the economy will greatly effect Gordon’s offers this summer as well. I think you’re going to see a lot of big name people get poor offers.

Also, it’s a matter of his pay relative to his peers. He feels he’s as good or better htan Deng and is offered less in consecutive seasons. Deng also would get no where near 72 million this summer.

In the end, Gordon’s refusal to take a deal will end up spiting himself rather than helping him out, but it’s not too hard to understand why he’d be upset either.

was most certainly an attempt at a discount by Paxson. Early security for less money. That’s how it works. Gordon turned it down as did Deng.

Last offseason, I can see why Gordon would feel dicked around. Firstly, it’s not just the money, but also his minutes were reduced so a fuckhead interim coach could give them to Larry Hughes. And his contract offer was less than Deng, on par with Hinrich (laughable), and the first year was less than what Nocioni would make this year.

I don’t get why you see it as a personal insult that Gordon turned down contracts, but it explains a lot. Unfortunately, I think Reinsdorf and Paxson took at as insulting. If it’s Gordon’s fault for either year it was that first early extension…but it’s understandable not to take the offer when the team has all the leverage. If Gordon was offered Deng’s contract he likely would’ve taken it. Not to mention that he took the fairly crappy take-it-or-leave-it offer past the deadline only to have it pulled off the table.

It’s not all that much about the money, but about his role and respect.

Although it was pretty dicky by Gardorf to bring out the red carpet for Deng, giving him $80 million, which was way more than he turned down the previous year, despite Deng playing worse the previous year. I think asking him to take less than Hinrich the second time around was a bit of an insult. We all know who is better. Deng at least had that high upside thing going for him, we all knew that Hinrich would never be better than Gordon, barring a major injury. They didn’t show much respect to Gordon when they were freely throwing money to all the other guys, and then all of a sudden ran out of money when it came to Gordon, who was undoubtedly the best of the bunch. John Paxson’s plan planned to pay Gordon more, but someone, called Derrick Rose interrupted the financials by being a #1 pick, when the Bulls were expecting around #9. The Bulls used the increase in salary numbers because of Derrick as a reason to play dumb ball with Gordon. Of course, if they didn’t pad Deng’s deal up to $80 million, it wouldn’t have amttered. But that was only a small part of it.

I think his role played a big part in it. For a guy like Gordon, the second deal is the one where he can really net a lot of money if the market conditions are right and depending on how he does on his second contract. (See Rashard Lewis). His role is endangered on the Bulls, and for silly reasons. Gordon is a much better player than Hinrich, Hunter, Hughes, Sefolosha, etc. Yet he was still coming off the bench behind these fools at the beginning of the year (Sefolosha was starting and Hinrich was subbed in before Gordon off the bench!).

But this was also seen at the end of last year. Last year, at the trade deadline, Ben Gordon was averaging 20.2 PPG on the season. 20 PPG is a bit of a line of demarcation in terms of money in the NBA. After the trade deadline, Boylan the Clown threw Gordon under the bus.

The last month of the season? Gordon only played 22 minutes a game.

Why the hell would you want to re-sign with a team that is playing you less than half the game, if you know you can go to a contender and start? Go to say New York, and become the featured guy in the offense of the coach you wanted your team to sign, or team up with Wade in Miami? (Although Mario Chalmers has altered that situation a lot).

It’s really easy to understand why Gordon would want to leave. He was playing less than half the game at the end of last year, while being asked to take under what he was offered the previous year, despite giving the other guy a raise. Who here wouldn’t want to leave if that was happening to them? The NBA’s restricted free agency just didn’t make it possible.

In general i think this is how its been for me, and it may be the same for other fans. No big news but im a hinrich fan, and it so happens that hinrich plays a similar position as gordon….now its never been that off the bat i hated gordon or any part of his game, but how many times has there been a situation that has been presented, especially this year more than any other, where a line has been drawn….gordon or hinrich. No matter where you stand in the initial argument, you must realize that negative comments towards hinrich create the need to defend hinrich, and then we create fallacies picking apart games and personalities and thus we have the negative spins on different players.

Sometimes its not as simple as people dont appreciate gordon or are so damn ignorant, its more that after having defend their own beliefs or players for so long, suddenly this guy named gordon, no matter what kind of person or player he actually is, he becomes a sort of a pest, and that leads to people seeing his actions in negative light.

Note: THis is not a call to arms in the hinrich vs gordon debate, i was just offering another reason for why gordon is looked down upon by some fans aside from just being general fans and being ignorant….

but I don’t think he’s put a number out there.

The makes, however, not so easily.

as “NBA Observer”.