Prediction: Gordon will re-sign with the Bulls

I read through a few hundred posts today and at the end of it I concluded people are tremendously overthinking things. This is, or at least should be very simple.

1. The Bulls will have a craptastic offense without him. For people dogging on him for being "one-dimensional", I say consider removing him any one player from the team over the past four seasons. Is there a single player who would have a bigger effect if he were gone? No way. He's the only guy who other teams really have to account for. The fact that he does as well as he does when the rest of this team is completely non-frightening offensively is saying something.

Look, say you take Deng off the team. Well, we'd certainly be worse off, but you could plug in Nocioni and Thabo and not lose a completely huge amount. Lose Hinrich and you could have plugged in Duhon. Lose Ben Wallace and... well, Ben Wallace was never really here. Lose Gordon and who picks up the slack? Nobody, that's who.

2. While the Bulls are close to the luxury tax, they should be able to get under the tax threshold by enough to pay Gordon through a minor move of some sort. Say pawning off Cedric Simmons on someone. And that's not even considering the major moves they need to make to get rid of Nocioni.

3. The QO isn't a great option for anyone. In fact it's a bad option. And it's in everyone's interest to have a good, settled situation for the next couple of years. Ben gets set for life guaranteed, and the Bulls get a good fit next to Derrick Rose.

4. I'm sick of hearing about Gordon's size. For one, in every meaningful way he's bigger than Kirk Hinrich. For two, does anyone think it really matters? Nobody gives a shit that Ray Allen or Michael Redd are nothing but shooters who are mediocre defenders. I hear people say "if only we could get Redd, at least he's taller". So what? He doesn't play taller, and neither does Allen. They're pretty much the same sort of players. The difference is that those guys started out their careers playing with other talented players, so they actually had it easier.

5. The guy lives at the gym and despite getting somewhat mystifying treatment from his team, has continually said and done the right things.

6. I think despite all the back and forth on contracts and what he wants, it's pretty simple. Offer him $9M, with the contract length of his choice, and he'll sign when push comes to shove.

 

I bet the Bulls would give him 9 mill, but he probably wants something similar to what Deng gets. He probably agrees with your thinking that him leaving the Bulls would have a bigger impact than Deng leaving the Bulls.

 

Two things you are missing from your analysis

1) Paxson is not a smart man

2) Ben wants more than he is worth

 

I agree with everything you said MikeDC.

And I too, want Gordon back.

But I fear the inept Bulls management. I think he''s a goner.

 

I think he will come back as well. Reports Bulls are offering 8-9M a year already. If they get to 9.5, you would think BG would want some level of security.

 

so there’s really no way to objectively look around the league and consider if we “overvalue” Ben.

Doing so inevitably will get a team talking in circles. For example, take the Cleveland Cavaliers. Would they prefer to pay Ben Wallace $13M/yr for the next two years or Ben Gordon? Certainly if the Bulls called up and offered to take back Wallace in a sign and trade, they’d jump at the chance.

On the other hand, take Memphis. They could pay Gordon but would have to give up their cap space to do so, and they’ve already got a plethora of guards.

If you’re looking at those two situations and saying “jeez, they’ve got nothing in common with each other” that’s the whole point. They don’t. So trying to line up what teams “value” Gordon at as if they are transitive doesn’t work.

As far as me, I look at Gordon and think of what to pay him in the following terms:
1) How much can we pay him without hamstringing (my) plans for the future. I think, as I wrote here, we probably could pay him what we’re paying Deng without totally screwing ourselves. Obviously I want to pay him the minimum, but consider that an upper limit.

2) How much do we have to pay him to make it worth his while to sign with us? That’s the lower limit, and it’s an expected value. What can Gordon expect to get over the next few years if he takes the QO and then walks, goes to Europe, or can find an acceptable sign and trade (because there are plenty of teams that will offer S&Ts that the Bulls would find unacceptable, obviously). That’s tough to guess. If I had to I’d say:

1% he gets seriously hurt and never plays again. He gets the $6.4M QO.

35% he plays for the QO and gets something in the $6M range the following year. I think the QO is a horrible option for him because the Bulls will have every incentive to put him on the bench to close out the season.

32% he plays for the QO and gets about an $8M to start offer (that’s $39M over the first four years).

32% he plays for the QO and gets about an $10M to start offer (that’s $46M over the first four years of his contract).

Of course I’m just guessing those probabilities, but add them up and it’s an expected value of $ about $43M to take the QO.

Unlike Deng, this doesn’t seem to be a very good option to Gordon if the Bulls can offer more than that, and they can.

3) The wildcard is the the Bulls already had $50M on the table, and I, at least, am the sort that wouldn’t be happy working for someone who pulled that money off the table. I just think that makes for a bad working relationship and I probably wouldn’t do it unless the money were a whole lot worse everywhere else.

But it’s not a whole lot worse. Last I heard the Bulls were offering $45M or so, and so if I expect I can get $42M elsewhere, I’m probably going to spend a few million on pride and take the QO.

However, as i pointed out, the Bulls, would seem to be in a position to offer a more face-saving option to Gordon, where the Bulls wouldn’t be hamstrung and everyone would be happy. So I’d do that. If i’m the Bulls, I offer something like $8.5-$9M to start. That’s 5yrs and $51.5M over a longer term contract, a figure that shouldn’t kill the Bulls but should add enough to the offer to let Gordon feel ok about playing here.

 

They're already paying $10M/season to 4 other average, perimeter oriented players.

With Rose in the mix they'll have to pay around $10M for someone (Hinrich or Gordon) to play backup minutes.

 

Hughes isn't a long term contract nor is the team really looking to count on him in the future.

Hinrich can be moved.

So that would leave Gordon (10M), Rose (rookie contract), and an extension for Thabo potentially....

 

Hughes has 2 years on his contract. While that's not "long term", it's not exactly expiring.

Chances are you can get rid of Hinrich for an expiring contract straight up, but that basically means you'll give him away for nothing.

Gordon is not worth $10M.

You're also forgetting about Deng and Nocioni.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Astral @ Aug 7 2008, 07:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Hughes has 2 years on his contract. While that's not "long term", it's not exactly expiring.

Chances are you can get rid of Hinrich for an expiring contract straight up, but that basically means you'll give him away for nothing.

Gordon is not worth $10M.

You're also forgetting about Deng and Nocioni.</div>

What is Gordon worth?

 

Gordon reportedly turned down 6/$59M. While I actually think that's less than he's probably "worth", I think it's quite a bit more than he can expect to get if he ends up taking the QO.

So it becomes an issue of how much he wants to go somewhere else/feel the love from the Bulls. For me, I think I'd say that if the money were about equal, he might as well go somewhere else and not get jerked around. But we're probably talking like $9M he's leaving on the table now instead of a couple. And that's probably more money than I'd leave on the table.

 

Doh!

I screwed up with a very poorly placed typo... they offered 6 years for $59M, not 5/$59M!

 

If the two sides are not nearing an agreement with a proposed deal of 6/59, then I can't see Ben staying here past next year. Can you guys imagine the Bulls offering much more than that? I can't.

I agree with Mike that the deal is probably slightly less than he's 'worth' but he's unlikely to get much more than that on the open market next year in UFA. Especially since the next year would almost be guaranteed to be turbulent for him.

I still think there's a decent chance that the two sides come to an agreement at the last second. Really, neither side has any better options. The bulls need his scoring and there aren't too many other teams that have a combo guard as good as Kirk and a dearth of offensive punch.

 

I agree with your agreement Rosenthall

I also think there's still a good chance he gets signed. The Bulls seem to want to keep him and that ought to count for something.

On the other hand, it seems under reported that several teams have inquired about sign and trades for him. Folks are going around saying there's no interest in him, but apparently teams are a bit interested and given that, I don't know why Gordon should jump to sign quickly.

 

Gordon is the only one saying other teams are interested. Wouldn't we hear some rumors from other sources if this was true?

 

That's from TechN9ne and he’s a guy who’s a “Bulls source” not a “Gordon source”. I find him to have a pretty clear pro-management spin to things in general, so the fact that he wrote those teams were trying to make a deal suggests to me that it’s a bit more than Gordon pulling stuff out of thin air.

I believe one of the papers reported something to that effect as well, but I can’t immediately find it.

 

He probably will. That's how 80% (at least) of these little disputes happen anyways, with apologies and a happy reunion.

 

If there was some way to sign a decent sign and trade with Phoenix that involves Barbosa, and it's very difficult to do so, I think we'd be in decent shape. When Barbosa and Rose were on the court together, we'd have two of the five fastest guys in the league on the court together. Barbosa had somewhat of an off season last year and fell out of favor with the management. He could be had, but obtaining him is still quite difficult without getting a bunch of crap, especially if trading Gordon dovetails with the 2010 plan.

One of the ways to do it is to trade for Shaq, but I don't think that's happening for any number of reasons.