Why is it that the Bulls are offering Gordon $59M when he was played fewer minutes per game than Hinrich, Hughes and Thabo in the last couple months of the season? Possibilities? 1. Maybe Pax wasn't standing idly by, and he simply wanted Gordon's value to go down. In the long-run he views Gordon as a $59M player, but he wanted to limit his minutes (in what was already a lost season) to diminish his value to other teams and then to turn around and say, "Hey Ben, we're going to do you a favor and offer you $59M! You'd better take it because remember, you're only a sixth man". He/Reinsdorf certainly wouldn't be the first guy/s to push that kind of line. 2. Perhaps Pax is a bad GM because he hired that clown and let him run roughshod over his team, as you said. I mean, that's a bad GM thing to do. 3. Perhaps Pax just thinks his doesn't have much vision and doesn't value Gordon very much but doesn't have the courage of his convictions to let him walk or force an S&T. I mean, if Pax really thinks Ben is a 24mpg player, you're right, he shouldn't offer him $59M because 24mpg players are replaceable. 4. Perhaps Pax just has an overly skewed sense of what a player he sees as a sixth man type is worth. I mean, he paid Nocioni a ton, and Noc didn't project as a big minute player either. I dunno, those all seem like possibilities to me. I guess I prefer the Machiavellian Pax of possibility 1. The Machiavellian Pax might be a Josh Howard sized turd, but at least he's a competent one. The other possibilities all suggest some flavor of incompetence.
