If we dont get LeBron, was it worth it in letting Gordon go?

I always liked Gordon and the Celtics/Bulls playoff series made me like him more but I don't regret letting him go. I feel like he is replaceable and the Bulls will find one either through trade or we might just wait until next year. Maybe sign a SG filler to a one year deal and then see what happens next year. I think Morrow would be similar and fit in for him

 

The bulls are going more than fill his production with 2 or 3 guys making the same money. It was a no brainer to let him go, especially since he isn't a starting SG. Between BG and Hinrich, the bulls had $20 mil a year tied up and might get 5 guys to more than fill that production. Can you honestly say that Korver at 5 mil/year isn't a much better value and a better 3pt shooter than BG at $11, or even $9 mil/year. And no, BG isn't a starter, not even in Detroit.

 

You know what the bulls record was in in those 82 games? you know what it was the last two seasons BG was here, more than 20 games under 500. What did BG do in Detroit last year. BG IS NOT A STARTING PG. And the bulls didn't miss him. Korver and Redick are both better catch and shoot 3pt shooters than BG, something BG was hesistant to do. BG always wants to put the ball on the floor. The defense is negligible, I wouldn't say any of the three are that good, but I'd much rather have Korver and Redick playing a role than BG trying to be the offense, and sucking on defense.

And BG blew at getting a shot at the end of the clock. He was a nightmare with his inevitable step back, fadeaway jumper. Give it a rest.

 

Congrats, you found the footage of the five shots he made. Don't be afraid to put all the numbers out there either.

Code:

Player               Fgm   Fga    Fg%   Ftm    Fta    Ast    T/O
League Wide 	853  	2858   .298   610    815    352  	296 
LeBron James 	17  	50      .340   14      20  	6  	4 
Vince Carter 	16  	51  	  .314  10      11  	3  	4 
Ray Allen 	        15  	39      .385   4        6  	1  	2 
Kobe Bryant 	14  	56  	  .250  12      15  	1  	5 
Carmelo Anthony13  	27       .481  7       11  	1  	4 
Allen Iverson 	13  	33  	   .394 6        8   	1  	2 
Ben Gordon 	12  	34  	   .353 6        6   	1  	4 
Dirk Nowitzki 	12  	37  	   .324 13      18  	1  	3 
Joe Johnson 	12  	45  	   .267 2        3   	4  	2 

Good "closers" get to the line if they can't hit the shot. Great ones get other guys the shot. BG doesn't do either of those well. Basically BG is league average. The other thing is that all of the guys on this list are playing for winning teams. BG is the only guy on this list playing for a losing team. You think there's a reason why? All these other guys are hitting game winning shots against good teams. So what if he hit one shot against the C's. How many game winners did BG miss against against the C's (and how many times was he on the floor when the C's were taking their game winning shots). There was a reason they played 7 overtimes...

 

What if you don't?

My preference in the lead up to this plan was to keep Gordon, dump Hinrich, and get a guy like Bosh or Boozer. I figured Wade and Lebron were unlikely to move, but because of that, it was unlikely you'd see any "big three" pairing like we ended up with.

Thus, a team meant to score a lot (Rose/BG/Deng/Bosh/Noah) and in a variety of ways (Rose dribble drive, BG 3 shooting, Bosh inside), with decent defense (anchored by Noah) would be roughly equivalent to the Celtics, but quite a bit younger. And I thought that had a fair chance at contending at a time when the truly great players were divided up on different teams, and most of those teams were making poor decisions about how to surround them.

As it turns out though, I don't think my optimal team would be a real threat against the Heat because I didn't anticipate all of those guys joining forces. Against a lesser team (say, last year's Cavs), I still think the sort of offensive powerhouse with decent defense would be a winner. But against the Heat, I just don't see how Lebron/Wade/Bosh lose to any offense-dominant strategy. Instead, you're going to have to beat them up, control the ball as much as possible, make them work, and hope the pretty boys give up. Of course, you still need good offense (which you'd have with Rose+Boozer), but the obvious strategy (unless Melo drops into our laps) is to look at the tactics teams like the Pistons and Knicks employed against us.

 

You don't get Boozer if you sign BG. It's that simple. And you keep Hinrich over BG to help Rose develop. We all saw what BG became when he wasn't the focal point of the offense and didn't have carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. Rose is already a better offensive player in his second year than BG is, so why would you want a high usage player like BG competing for the ball with Rose? And you can get better shooters than BG at 50% of the price to fill in around Rose and use the rest to balance the team with a low post presence like Boozer. There was simply no reason to sign BG after he turned down 5/$50 other than to avoid the PR hit.

And as is demonstrated every year in the playoffs, you win with defense. You only sign BG if you want to have a nice team that goes out in the first or second round every year. Like Joe Johnson and Atlanta.

 

Lebron is a 33% USG player with a PER almost twice what BG's is. Lebron makes the players around him better. BG doesn't. All of Rose's numbers were better playing next to Hinrich. And BG's numbers were better next to Hinrich, too. Learn the game Denny. Your comments are like a bucket of warm cat piss balanced on top of the door leading into these threads. Nobody wants to come back in here after you've commented because it's such a foul experience.

 

Wrong. BG's numbers dropped as the season went on. They picked up when Salmons showed up. How did BG's Detroit teammates do? Let me guess, they weren't using BG the right way...

 

Right, because Salmons wasn't a good fit next Rose either.

 

The bottom line is that the bulls went 41-41 with and without BG and didn't miss him in any way that translated to wins and losses. And barring injuries last year, would have been an even better team recordwise than the year before.