Sam Confirms Bulls Idiocy
Can you please shed some light on the rumor that Ben Gordon was trying to accept Bulls' offer last year past the deadline imposed by the Bulls and was denied? If that's true, does it mean that the Bulls never wanted to give him that contract? I would think that if you really want someone, a minor technicality wouldn't stop you.
Boris
Sam: More Ben. This is what happened, as I've heard it. Ben rejected $50 million for five years from the Bulls in 2007. Then he rejected $54 million for six years last summer. The negotiations were ugly and accusatory. Still, the Bulls came back to Ben again and said they have to move on and he had 48 hours to accept the offer. After all, this has been going on for over a year. Ben's agent waited the 48 hours, or whatever time period, and said no. OK, said the Bulls. Then just before the deadline, the agent came back and said Ben would accept. This gave the Bulls pause about what was going on and why and now right before the deadline. So they backed off and said they'd wait it out since they still could offer Ben the most. Ben was upset, though I don't see how the Bulls treated him unfairly.
about 3 years ago
Andrew7
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I still don't understand this.
A few things looking at this.
John Paxson should be guilt free from this. You know he was not involved in this mess. I think everyone knows that Paxson would have gladly let Gordon accept the contract.
I don’t understand why the Bulls didn’t let him take the offer. The Bulls won the negotiation, Gordon accepted, who cares about your made up deadline. It looks like Reinsdorf’s ego got in the way.
The redeeming factors is that Ben was a Bulls fan growing up, so he may want to stay here, and he has a good relationship with John Paxson. The Bulls, if they offered the same contract again, would likely have the biggest contract offer, that is unless a team like the Pistons offers more, which is a possibility.
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Clearly you have never been involved in contract negotiations.
When you give someone a deadline, it is for a reason. In this case, the Bulls had to move forward to address other issues with the team, namely trading Larry Hughes (who reportedly was going to be moved to Washington before his injury).
I concur with the board, BG’s agent messed this one up.
" I've looked at these numbers and decided the #1 problem
is that Ben Gordon is selfish..." -your friendly bulls blogger
Kind of like how Deng gave the ultimatum about having a contract by the time he left for England and then he got one.
Sometimes ultimatums should be ignored based on the context and what you really want out of the situation. The Bulls were a second away from getting what they wanted. Gordon at a bargain price they set themselves. The thing they wanted all season so I am to believe. If they really wanted Gordon and wanted him for a good price then a technicality they set for themselves would mean nothing and he would be signed. It isn’t like some deity would strike them dead for agreeing to a deal with Gordon. They could have done it with no face lost at all. And had Gordon put up a season like he has it would have looked like a sweet deal.
Everything I post is speculation. I have no insider information nor ideas deemed concrete enough by those who are self-elected to regulate post content.
by cranscape on Mar 27, 2009 7:14 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Lots of contracts are not signed
until the final moments of a negotiation. This situation wasn’t really weird until it came to the point the Bulls didn’t let Gordon sign after they were poised to get their way in the end. That is where this deviates from the norm.
And back to the Deng signing. Deng set the ultimatum and Jerry jumped on it despite the fact no one else was seriously going after Deng and Deng had come off a poor season. THAT was a bad signing too. Both signing and not signing has Jerry’s stench of all over them and were not normal or rational. Thanks, Jerry.
Everything I post is speculation. I have no insider information nor ideas deemed concrete enough by those who are self-elected to regulate post content.
that hughes part doesn't make sense
if they “had to move on” then the lack of a trade would have happened because Gordon didn’t accept the deal, not due to the injury. if they were going to trade Hughes anyway, even after Gordon turned down the contract, and then they stopped because of the injury, then why did they have to give Gordon a deadline?
Viva la nuance! Reading comprehension rules!!!
That's because the Bulls weren't moving on to make other moves.
The Bulls front office threw a hissy fit and took their ball and went home.
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Pax isn't an idiot, but JR is for not letting Gordon sign that contract.
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BG's agent is still an idiot
Joakim Noah: Better than you.
by Prevenge on Mar 27, 2009 4:02 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Go read the Jordan Rules.
The Bulls front office is easily the hardest front office to negotiate a contract with. Every contract negotiation is like World War 3. (Unless your going to save Sudan like Luol Deng and kiss the ring and all that jib).
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by Andrew7 on Mar 27, 2009 4:25 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
If the bulls let him take that offer it sends a message.
That message being, that you can handcuff the organization by holding out even past offer deadlines and still get a generiousoffer, one that no other team would even be willing to give you
If you want to be angry that Gordon probably wont be back thats fine, but put the blame where it belongs, Gordons agent and to a lesser degree Gordon himself
He took his time up until the deadline, then decided to accept the offer.
That’s smart negotiating on Gordon’s part, because there was nothing about the Bulls offer that made it something he had to take right away.
I don’t see who it sends a message to, other than that the Bulls front office is childish in negotiations (but who didn’t already know that?). Either the Bulls will want a player or not.
And if Gordon was unrestricted last summer, he probably could have got that offer elsewhere. It was just that the Bulls had Gordon handcuffed last summer.
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It doesn't send that message
The point of the deadline was that the Bulls had to explore other options. At the point Ben cam back to accept, nothing had happened with any other option, so there was no reason not to let him accept. It doesn’t send the message that you can hold them hostage, the risk is still there that they would go with another option.
It would have been perfectly understandable if the Bulls had set the deadline, Ben said no, they signed someone else, and then Ben came back and they said “sorry, we moved on.” But in this case they didn’t move on.
by JeffD on Mar 27, 2009 3:00 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
Well I was more or less playing debils advocate witht he "message" part.
I think they should have let him take the offer, even though looking at it now(with Rose) I dont think think a Rose/Gordon Backcourt could win a title.
I guess the real point is that Gordon wont get what the Bulls were offering the past two years this summer and that is the fault of his agent in my opnion
Ben's agent
needs to be replaced by Rick Peck, atleast he’d get TivO
..on 2/18/09, Noc was gone..and on the next day, Larry "The Chucker" was just a bad dream...
The agent may have screwed up but so what...
It’s about what’s best for the organization and if you’re the Bulls, you can’t afford to let feelings get in the way. Sports teams cut and trade guys everyday for things such as “cap space” and “Looking toward the future”, so God forbid they catch feelings because a player and his agent is playing hard ball with negotiations. Besides if the Bulls didn’t over pay for a back up PG in Hinrich and negotiate against themselves to over pay an injury prone SF in Deng, then maybe they wouldn’t be in danger of losing their leading scorer for the past 4 years for nothing. This is the Bulls responibilty and fault. Period.
they had no way to know hinrich wasn't going to be their starting pg when he signed the extension 2.5 years ago.
"They should. They better. I'm Vinny Del Negro!"
Yeah but they knew they were setting a high standard
So they had to know that when BG and Deng came knocking on the door for ther contracts after establishing themselves in the league, that they would have to pay the piper. Pax assumed that these were “good guys” that would take the contracts offered. But suprise, they turned out to be professional athletes with agents that wanted to be paid to what they thought their value was. And since they knew they were better players than Hinrich, there was no way they would take less. Ironically that strategy worked for Deng but it didn’t work for the guy who probably most deserved that money.
i agree that they paid him too much, but not by that much
i’d value gordon at the 5/50 he was originally offered, so honestly, i don’t blame the bulls there.
but the organization can’t be blamed for paying a “backup” as much money as hinrich makes because as far as they knew he was going to be their starting pg for the foreseeable future. i read something that estimated his market value at 8 million per… and he got a bit more than that… but i think 8 would have been appropriate and then gordon at 10.
"They should. They better. I'm Vinny Del Negro!"
Hinrih's salary doesn't matter anymore.
With the way the economy is, just repeating the $54 million/6 year deal should get Gordon back, and a $60 million/6 year deal should be more than enough to seal the deal.
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