Wade is clearly one of the most physically gifted guards in the league. He usually shuts down our best offensive player (Gordon). He also burns our best defensive player guard (Hinrich). That being said, Wade's athletic ability and outright skill is really helping our guards grow.

Hinrich has done a good job defending him and Gordon seems to be adjusting to Wade's superior athletic ability.

Win or lose, this is a good experience for the young Bulls. Probably more-so than last years playoff's.

Winning a game on the road against Miami would be a huge milestone for these guys. I hope it happens.

I would not trade any of the significant players on this team. They all have shown desire to win. The only way I would trade any of these guys is if they were in a contract year and I didn't think I could resign the player. Obviously, that is not the case for our younger guys.

All the proposed trades we are talking about include giving up atleast two of our core guys. This team has desire and chemistry. Giving up two pieces of that puzzle would be a mistake. Try to do it with draft and free-agency for the time being.

Deng? Really? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. IMO Deng is an average player with a very limited offensive game. I also don't think Deng is any better at D than Gordon. Obviously he's bigger, but if the offense ran through Deng like it often runs through Ben I think we'd be a laughing stock. Deng is certainly young, but I can't ever see Deng consistently beating guys off the dribble, hitting big threes, or having an offense run through him. Most of those things Gordon does now, and I think he's got some PG skills that still will develop. As far as shooting percentage goes. I think there's gotta be someone on every team that suffers a little in the shooting percentage department. It's usually the guys who wind up with the ball late in the clock and is forced to make something happen. Ben is one of those guys for us and his shooting percentage suffers because of it. I also don't think Ben takes a lot of bad shots. He certainly takes a lot of shots, but I think the team runs a lot of plays for him. If Deng had to take shots that were half a difficult as the shots Ben is often forced to take I think Deng would shoot around 25%.

I feel the same way about Deng that you do about Gordon. I like him on the team, but if I had to choose it would be Gordon all the way. At the very least, when Gordon is on, the games are exciting.

I'm a little amazed at some of the trade talk. Ben is the only good player on a team mostly comprised of guys who range from scrub to average. Fine, trade Ben. Watch Deng, Nocioni, and for that matter Kirk try to beat anyone off the dribble late in the game. Without Ben, this team would be the worst in the league. Or darn close to it.

Our front line consists of a bunch of retreads and Tyson Chandler. Everyone else can easily be shut down if the other team chooses to. Everyone except Ben. Despite all that, the Bulls are on the verge of the playoffs for the second year in a row. Ben has been on the Bulls for two years. I don't think that's a conicedence.

Almost every big win we've had over the last two years can be attributed to Ben. Go ahead, throw him under the bus. Your right, we could find someone who's a little taller. But there's no way we can find someone that has more of a knack for hitting the big shot than Ben. If I were a coach and I had the pick one guy OUT OF THE WHOLE LEAGUE to hit a big shot, the only guys who come close are Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. THAT'S IT. Kobe, Dwayne, or Ben and I think I might lean twards Ben.

I can't stress this enough. We can find more size at that position, I'll agree with that....but, THERE'S NO WAY WE'LL FIND SOMEONE THAT MAKES BIG SHOTS LIKE BEN GORDON! NO F'IN WAY!

Everything about Ben being undersized is accurate, but Ben is the least of our worries. A good big man is crucial. Not only are we lacking down low, but I our current guards (ben, kirk, and duhon) seem to do a really good job utilizing a low post player that can score. Because of that, I think the combination of our guards and a legit big will help more than a good big would help some other team. I hope that makes sense.

Also, Ben seems to make every big shot he takes. I bet he's over 50% when taking late shots that will either tie, put us ahead, or win the game. If we trade Ben I think we'll be watching him make game winning shots for someone else for a long time.