Bull Bear Sock: Should the Bulls re-sign BG?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Should the Bulls re-sign BG?

The stupid embed feature from NBA.com was not working -
Here's a link to Charles discussing BG

We have seen him make buckets like few players in the Association are capable, literally making impossible shots from impossible distances. But we’ve also seen him shoot us out of many games, and let his man (virtually) match him on the other end. Just as you think we NEED his scoring ability, he makes another selfish or stupid play. He is a gift and a curse ... an extremely talented, athletically gifted, idiotic, selfish basketball player.
These playoffs showed us both the best and the worst of Ben Gordon ...

The best:

Game2: Shot 14-24 for 42points – 1rebound – 0assists

The worst:

Game7: Shot 7-23 for 33points – 3rebounds – 4assists;
Game 6: Shot 4-14 for 12points – 2rebounds – 4assists

A recent poll here on BBS showed that most people are in favor of keeping BG for a reasonable salary ...

Given what we know now, is BG worth re-signing for any amount?? Is he what Charles Barkly called him – “a specialist, not a starter”?? We are almost at the luxury cap threshhold, we are going to have to pay JoaNoah, TT and (in a few years) Rose will require a max deal. We already have a lot invested in Luol, and an NBA team can really only have 3 max (or near-max) deals. So with Luol, Rose and Noah/TT (obviously one of them would have to sacrifice some $ or something) … do we have room to pay BG?? And more importantly, should we?

I would love to see comments/thoughts about the enigma that is Ben Gordon.

4 comments:

DC said...: offer Ben a 4 year $20 mil deal. There is going to be no market out there for him this season. Three teams have money: Detroit, Ex-Seattle, and Memphis. If Ben wants to win he'll stay in Chicago or maybe go to Detroit (although they are on the way out and, with their cap space, will either wait for 2010 or offer him a lower deal than he'll expect). I think he'll see the team with the best immediate upside is Chicago.

If we can sign him and put it through his skull that:
A) he's a 6th man who's only job is to score
B) he is not to take the ball up court when a point guard is on the court (read: never take the ball up court)
C) passing isn't a disease, it actually feels kind of nice

I won't mind having him back. But I'm sick of the selfish play (after flip-flopping back and forth on this), regardless of how well he can fill it up.; May 5, 2009 at 4:50 PM
2j said...: I have flip-flopped more on BG than I ever have in my life. He's exciting and can fill it up like few others! It's fun to watch and he can literally win a game by himself. But he is a small SG, creates bad matchups, he's selfish and has a low basketball IQ. He doesn;t stop shooting whether he's 19-28 from the field or 4-28.

Ao I agree with you ... but can we convince him to come off the bench? Or does his ego require that he hear his name announced before games? And will that same ego-driven player sign for $5M/year??

I guess it all depends on the market (which is very limited) and the offers he gets from other teams. If we're willing to do 4yr/$20M, are we willing to do 4yr/$24? or $28?? Aren't we getting into the range of some pretty good players at that point ($7M/yr)??

I can't make up my mind.; May 5, 2009 at 7:45 PM
Kmart said...: I flip-flop on this issue constantly. I think the Bulls have to try to re-sign BG. If we don't we are virtually writing off next season. We still don't know if Luol will ever return to 06 form let alone stay on the court for 82. I'm not convinced Kirk has turned the page on his God-awful 2007 season, even after a very solid post-season. And Salmons has never averaged more than 14 PPG before this season.

I don't see the point/value in letting high draft picks walk out the door for nothing in return. It would be dumb of the Bulls to not try to sign him to a reasonable deal even if he is not in their plans for the future.

While I think 4/$20 is probably an extreme low-ball unfair and below market value, I think you work around that figure. 5/$40 would probably be the max. I would offer in this market. It's still probably below market value (See Monta's 6/$66), but reasonable enough that it will probably be Ben's best offer, yet still a very reasonable and very moveable contract (unlike Luol).

Either way signing Ben will put us into the luxery tax, where Uncle Jerry certainly will not want to be. Which means that the Bulls will have the option to shop Kirk or Ben during the season.

I know Kirk is the darling of the front office and upper-middle class white suburban fans everywhere, but his trade value has never been higher and we already have our PG. Trade him to Portland for Frye and some expirings.

Add the expirings to Miller, Tim Thomas, and Jerome James $20 mil coming off the books before 2010 and we are still in great position to ink ourselves a Bosh/Amare.

Adding a 4 of that calibur would probably make Tyrus expendable at that point, and if you are unhappy with BG at that point try to package him with Ty and see if you can get a real upgrade in the backcourt to play off Derrick.; May 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM
DC said...: This season was the first year that Salmons was really given a chance to start consistently, and I think that is reflected in his upturn in production.

And I don't think you can simply look at Monta's contract as a litmus test because when he signed that the league, financially, was in a different place and it was a FA market that allowed for it. However, it's different now becaue of the overriding factors going into this offseason:

1) No one has money to spend this year.
2) Almost every team lost money in 08-09 and the salary cap is likely going down next year.
3) Every team with a reasonable chance to sign one of the big 2010 FAs has their checkbooks locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

This is why I say we offer Ben a "below market" contract because if he wants to win, he'll take it and stay (and I don't think he's going to get a huge offer regardless). If it's all about money, he'll leave, go to a shitty team, and roll out his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde routine night in, night out. But the last thing I want to do is OVERPAY for a player who is so limited in all areas of the game save one, where he is well above average.; May 6, 2009 at 3:18 PM