Lead your team in scoring for 2 years in a row while shooting over 40% from the arc in each of your first 3 seasons. Be the 19th highest scorer in the league. Then talk respect. Oh, he did that all already.

Not to mention he shot 45.5% from the field last year. That's pretty good for a jump shooter and someone who shoots as many 3's as he does.

You think Kirk, Deng, Nocioni get as many open looks if we don't have Gordon. Hell no they won't.

Anyway, I doubt Gordon is looking for a max deal. I'm sure he's just looking to be treated fairly ($10+ million). But I have a feeling that Paxson is trying to low ball him which could make this an ugly situation.

i never said we shouldnt sign him.

and my point was that if he could get us to the finals, he would put himself on the map. although, we'll be the first to see him, so maybe we could give him a contract soon.

Ben Gordon is not in a good situation with the Chicago Bulls. On a lesser team, or a team less dedicated to moving the ball and solid defense, he would be one of the top scorers in the league, and well on his way to a quite a payday.

With the Bulls, he is important, but I know Skiles sees him as expendable and plays him that way. In our system, everyone is expendable. This is a good thing, but unfortunately when someone like Gordon wants to get paid a sum of money he deems he's worth, Paxson/Skiles might not necessarily agree with him.

I predict that this could get ugly.

Fine...if it gets ugly...the beautiful think is...we still have a solution to that...do exactly what we did with the last ugly negotitiation...treat it as a sign and trade.

This team has fully enough resources to sign him to whatever contract he wants or to match whatever contract any other team can offer him. If we don't think he's worth whatever another team offers though, then we make another team meet our asking price in a trade and wind up holding something else of value, just as we did with guys like Crawford and Curry.

Dude, the last sign-and-trade (sort of) we did was Tyson, and we got jack-spiff back.

That trade hurts like hell.

The last actual sign an trade we did though was Eddy Curry to the Knicks, and I'd say that worked fairly well.

Yeah, 3 seasons later we get the final piece, how else has that worked well?... you want to wait another three seasons to reap the true benefits of dealing Gordon...

I'm sorry, thus far we got Tyrus Thomas and Mr. Crazy out of it (and we had to give up Antonio Davis, a piece I'm still semi-upset we moved)... until one of those two averages 20 minutes a game, I don't know how you can consider that a win.


This team with Curry/Chandler instead of Wallace/Thomas/Noah would be better off for 07/08. Sorry, I'm in no mood for a sign-and-trade. I want to keep Gordon around and build, not take two steps back.

Personally, I'll add that while this team might have been better in 06-07 with Curry and Chandler than with Wallace, TT, Brown and a draft pick, I am pretty convinced that as constructed, that team just wasn't going to be good enough...not with those 2 in the middle. I think that both starting this year and in the long term, we will be better, and a lot better, with what we've built.

The Bulls will be good this year... will they win a championship? No. The next three years of Ben Wallace are going to get painful...

The last year I understand...but I think that this year Ben may well be quite a bit better than last given the added depth to this team, the added strength to the front court, and the fact that he's played with most of the key guys for a season already and there won't be an adaptation time.

And on top of that...I still really like having a couple of grizzly vets on this team. Don't underestimate the value of having a guy like that who can be a leader and sometimes even be the guy who can stand up to the coach if necessary. I for one don't think it's a coincidence that our season last year seemed to magically turn around right after the headband incident.

And the Cubs are 2 1/2 ahead in their division because Lou Pinella decided to kick some dirt on an umpire back in June

No, that's because their division is terrible.

agree