Ben Gordon is pretty good

I think it can be summarized by the fact that he is neither Kirk Hinrich nor Michael Jordan.

Therefore, he's uppity and selfish whenever takes more than 5 shots a game.

 

Public Service Announcement: Those 82games stats for PER against are grossly wrong for guys like BG who don't guard their own position >90% of the time, or in BG's case, half of the time. I've talked with Roland about this and he confirmed it. They are based on the arbitrary comparison of what the other guy listed at the same position is doing. When BG is in the game it is the SG even though BG isn't guarding him. If BG is in the game with Thabo and Deng, he is considered the PG. When he is in with Lindsay Hunter and Rose, I think he is considered the SF. These stats are not manually curated, it is all automated parsing of the game logs. So please don't quote those numbers when trying to make the "BG isn't that bad of a defender" argument. He is. That's why he was lit up by guys like Barbossa and Roy and Kevin Martin and Delonte West even. When he can play the guy standing in the corner like Bobby Simmons, or Batoum or Maurice Evans or Shane Battier he is exploited a lot less frequently, but that's mostly due to the fact that those guys don't touch the ball.

And BG's PER is ~16.5, barely above average. We're talking about a guy who doesn't even sniff the all-star game. His TO's and defense make him the Rex Grossman of the bulls. Sure he can go deep and he looks great when the offensive line is top notch, but he's just as likely to throw an interception as to get a first down when there is any pressure.

 

Take Gordon off the Bulls and give Sefolosha and Hinrich all of Gordon's old minutes. Does the Bulls defense improve? Maybe....but not by much. The Bulls offense will....

Regardless of whether Gordon stays or go, we will still have to bring in better defensive big men if we ever want to be good defensively again.

 

I don't really want to belabor this because BG is a talented offensive guy. But I have absolutely no doubt that Thabo could go 5-15 against good teams every bit as easily as BG does. And we know Kirk can. So I don't see where the big drop off is. BG kills bad teams like Washington and Memphis, but he gets stopped by good teams, and always has, even two years ago. So I'd be curious to see what a guy like Thabo or Kirk can do next to Rose as guys who can distribute and shoot, just not quite at the level of BG. Kirk's TS% is right there with BG's this year. Maybe they'd only beat Washington by 15 instead of 20, but I'd feel like they be a lot closer to the good teams.

I've said it before, if we're talking about BG as a 30 min/pg sixth man I think he can absolutely dominate in that role. His PER was over 23 in that role this year. But as a starter he is pedestrian all things considered. And Thabo or Kirk wouldn't be worse, just different. The bulls aren't that good now...

 

Kirk is shooting 53.4 TS%. Ben's is 57.1 TS%. That's quite a bit of difference.

 

We've been through all of this before, but players don't get magically better or worse by playing 30 minutes off the bench instead of 30 minutes starting.

But beyond that, what a knowingly weak set of arguments I see guys posting. BG has a 23 PER in what, like 6 games? Someone's TS% is 3% different from someone else's? Really??? This is citing facts to support opinions, not forming opinions based on facts.

 

Players don't get better, but the matchups that are created are different. Teams are forced to gameplan differently. I'm pretty sure the bulls weren't prepared to double Delonte West in the post. They were probably geared up to force Lebron into taking long jumpers. If you have Kirk or Thabo on him, then you're not having to adjust and open things up for Lebron, are you? Then when BG comes in, Cleveland has to adjust what they are doing to defend him instead of the bulls adjusting what they are doing , and the whole flow of the game is changed. It's a pretty subtle, but important thing. If it didn't matter which 30 minutes a guy played, do you think anybody would care about things like +/-? Matchups are what the game is all about, and maximizing those matchups makes a big difference. Starting BG isn't maximizing anything except his opportunity for minutes...

 

Matchups are largely overrated.

 

Wow. Not sure how you come to that conclusion, but I guess that settles it then.

 

Here

 

yeah, I still think that is flawed logic, but it's fine. The idea that more BG is better BG seems logical until you realize that more BG isn't better Bulls. For example, BG got his 20 against Houston, but 40% of his points came after the game was effectively over. And that was on a night when the bulls employed the "BG take the guy standing in the corner who isn't going to shoot" defensive strategy. Against Sacramento, BG was taken out with two quick fouls because he couldn't guard Kevin Martin. He scored his ~20 again, but none of his points came when the game was within double digits. His scoring isn't helping the bulls win for the most part. For every big shot he hits against Phoenix, he misses two in overtime against OKC with the game on the line. BG going off in the last two minutes or when the team is down double digits to make the final outcome more respectable doesn't help anything but their Hollinger ranking. Same with beating the Washington's of the league by 20 instead of 15. This idea that BG's scoring is integral to the bulls success is a myth. Defense and ball handling are actually way more important at this point. Maybe down the road a couple of years when everybody else is at the level where they could compete with the C's and Lakers of the league, BG's scoring would be nice, but he still isn't a starter on a team that competes with them.

 

You're thinking short term, not long term. Long term, having one of the best shooters in NBA history (he is going to set the record for most three pointers in the first five years of a players career this season as long as he doesn't get injured) is something that you want on a championship team. Putting Dwight Howard on the Bulls (and say making him the equivalent to Tyrus Thomas on offense, but D-Howard on defense)...yes, the Bulls probably are better if you trade Gordon for that player. But trade Gordon for say Raja Bell, and you have perimeter defense, you are most likely a worse team.

It all depends on where the defensive improvement is coming from. If we want the defensive improvement to come at the guard spot at Gordon's expense, then the team probably gets worse. Perimeter defenders can only be so effective these days. When the NBA instituted the hand check rules on the perimeter, the days of lockdown perimeter defenders really ended. Bruce Bowen was really the only stay over, and that's because the refs let him handcheck. Getting a great interior defender...then I would agree with you, that has a good chance of probably being more important than Gordon long term, and would actually improve our team.

 

I really think the Rex Grossman analogy was best. I was a Rex guy and I wanted to blame the offensive line. But when you see what a guy like a healthy Kyle Orton can do just by making the simple plays you realize that Rex isn't the guy. Sure Orton can't throw the deep ball as well, but he was a lot more effective moving the ball because he could make the routine throws. Trying to say that BG wouldn't look so bad if there was a shot blocker behind misses the point. It's a team game and everybody has to step up. One guy not being able to pick up a teammate makes a small problem a big one. Better perimeter defense makes the interior defense that much better. If BG isn't on the roster next year, you guys won't miss him.

 

You've pretty consistently said you think he should be a 30 minute a game player, but coming off the bench, no? So my disagreement with your view, as best I can tell, is not one of more BG vs. less BG. I think he should play about 30 minutes, you think he should play about 30 minutes.

So I don't see how more or less is the issue.

As always, it depends on who he's starting next to. Just like Ray Allen or Michael Redd "isn't a starter on a team that, given the rest of the Bulls talent, can match up with the Celtics and Lakers. Just like Kirk Hinrich or Thabo Sefolosha.

On the other hand, if Rose comes along, Deng stays healthy, Noah matures, and we manage to add Chris Bosh, I'd rather have the 5th starter be Gordon, an elite shooter who, by virtue of being able to draw double teams, makes the game easier for all those other guys, than Thabo or Kirk.

 

I'm not sure I agree with the logic you're using. In general, I think players take as many shots as they can efficiently make. Ben Gordon scores about 20 ppg while being the main focus of the offense. If you substituted Thabo in that role, I think things would be really, really ugly. I don't think he'd be able to take as many shots as BG simply because he doesn't have the ability to, even if he were allowed to do the same things. It's a fallacy to make projections the way you are IMO.

 

My point is that it would be just as ugly. Thabo is quite capable of going 5-15. And BG isn't as much the focus of the offense that he has been in the past. Rose is becoming more and more of the offense, and Tyrus and Deng are taking a larger percentage. Plus, the original comment was relating to the fact that BG doesn't do well against good competition, when he usually throws up his 6-18's. I'm not questioning that BG lights up bad defensive teams. The point was that he's taken out of the game by good teams and that his offense doesn't translate into wins but his volume of shots doesn't change.

"In general, I think players take as many shots as they can efficiently make." Really?

 

Gordon showed up on a list of "All-stars by the numbers" on Mark Cuban's blog yesterday.

However, I can't, for the life of me, understand what this statistic actually purports to represent, how its calculated, or how it's being presented. He might have well have posted this in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. And then had his dog poop on them.