Ben Gordon thinks he’s done as a Bull

If you read this site, you probably think I hate Ben Gordon. That’s actually not completely true. As a Bulls fan, I love him. He’s carried the Bulls offensively for entire games, and has hit tons of clutch shots. I’ve even made Gordon’s patented ‘Giant Killer’ a critical part of my own stellar basketball arsenal. It’s just that if I were running the Bulls, something that should happen as soon as possible, we wouldn’t be going through this whole fiasco right now. I would have traded him years ago.

The Bulls were stupid for offering Gordon approximately 5-years, $50 million before last season, and should be thanking God he turned it down right now. Gordon’s a good player, sure, but no team will ever win anything with him as their primary scorer. Scoring is the only thing Gordon can do, and he doesn’t even do that nearly as consistently as he should. And when Ben Gordon isn’t scoring, he’s totally worthless.

Despite my championing of Mike D’Antoni earlier this offseason, something that feels like it happened ages ago, defense is so, so important in basketball. When Gordon’s on the floor, the Bulls are a significantly worse defensive team. He can’t hang with any legit NBA two-guard, and that forced Hinrich (and next year, Rose) to waste endless amounts of energy trying to cover guys way bigger than him. You want Hinrich to shoot a higher percentage? Tell him to stop guarding Paul Pierce. If Gordon is in the Bulls plan long term, Rose will suffer from the same problems. It’s great that Gordon can score 20 points a game, but it doesn’t matter if the other shooting guard scores 30, and your point guard, who should be guarding, you know, other point guards, can’t be as effective offensively. I still think Hinrich is really good at guarding other points, and I’m sure Rose will be even better, but he just got eaten alive all of last season when he had to go against shooting guards, something that happened every time he and Gordon, two of the Bulls three best players, were on the court at the same time.

So what should the Bulls do with Gordon, who clearly has some value league-wide, now that his rookie contract is up and he wants to be the highest paid player on the team? Easy, make him sign the one-year tender which would allow him to become an unrestricted free agent after next season. Gordon will still be the Bulls second best player next year, and the team is certainly better with him on it. It’s just that Gordon has too many flaws to invest in long term. Only one problem: Gordon said he won’t sign the tender, which would pay him $6.3 million next year.

So that means either two things: a) the Bulls will offer Gordon the same thing they did before last season, and he’ll take it, or b) it’s sign and trade time, baby. But I agree with Matt from BaB that draft picks or cap relief isn’t enough. The Bulls need to find a shooting guard who can be their primary scorer, and I wouldn’t be opposed to taking another bad contract for that to happen. I’ve brought up Vince Carter here a few times, and general reaction was everyone chucking food at me, but I still think that makes sense. What about someone like Jason Richardson? He’s big, gets to the foul line, and would have no problem checking other two-guards. I’m not sure Charlotte would want to get rid of him, though I know he has a rather huge contract, but a package of Gordon and Noce should be enough to get it done.

More likely than not, however, that won’t happen. The Bulls will probably trade off Gordon for less than equal value, something that will be bitter sweet for everyone.