I think any of the players listed can have an argument. It really shows how deep the Bulls roster is and what a bright future they apear to have.

I wonder who is going to win this poll?

Your best bet is that all the Tyrus/Noah lovers will be a split vote. lol


Seriously though, Im torn between Gordon and Thomas.

im going to say kirk. he's the ball distributer, and was the 8th pick in that great draft of lebron, carmelo, bosh, wade. in 2 or 3 years, i think he can be a 20 and 10 guy. mix that in with tyrus, who at that point could be averaging 15 pts, 10 rbs, and 3 blocks, and deng, who could be at 23 and 10 at that time

I would say Gordon right now, they need his scoring fairly badly since the only other consistent options are Deng and Hinrich, with Noc looking like he's off a bit towards the end of the year. The offense really takes a dive without him. Hinrich is reasonably close, without him the ball-handling among the starters is pretty weak (unless you start Duhon, in which case the offense takes a fair hit).

Of course if they acquired a good post scorer like Gasol, Gordon becomes more expendable since scoring is really all he does. You'd still need his outside shooting, but Kirk becomes a bit more important because of the ball distribution.

Until the younger guys develop into more reliable options I can't pick them yet...

I'd say Kirk right now, but it should be Tyrus down the line. Kirk, Wallace, Gordon in that order for right now.

I'm torn between Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich. Kirk is the Captain, as the primary distributor and facilitator of the team, but the Bulls absolutely NEED Ben Gordon's offense to win. BG and Deng are the foundation of the Bulls offense, with Kirk and Nocioni as the second-tier offensive players.

In two years, I can very confidently say Tyrus will become the Bulls most important player.

A team of Ben Gordon, All-Star Luol Deng, potential All-Star Tyrus Thomas, and Captain Kirk Hinrich is an excellent young core. I'm sure Joakim will fit in well. It's like we have a College All-Star team!

I went with Kirk. There aren't many teams that have as good of a PG as Hinrich. He distributes the ball very well, runs the break very well, and plays very good defense to go along with ~15 ppg. I don't understand how the Kirk haters out there fail to see how valuable he is. PG's like that don't grow on trees.

My order of importance as of right now would go Hinrich, Gordon, TT.

I gotta go with Kaptain (yes, with a K ) Kirk.

atleast right now whoever didnt pick Gordon needs to be smacked

The question wasn't who the best scorer was. IMO Kirk means a lot more than Ben to this team.

Without Gordon we would be a bad team unless of course we got someone that can replace his scoring either from the inside or outside. I love Kirk but Gordon is by far the more valuable player to this team and its not really all that close either.

We'd be quite a bit worse without Kirk too. You'd have to either replace him with Duhon, who can't score and would essentially make it 2 on 5 on the offensive end (assuming Tyrus plays PF, though so far in summer league he looks like less of a liability, albiet against weaker competition), or Thabo where you take a hit in scoring AND the ball-handling.

Yes, Gordon's scoring would be harder to replace since he is better at creating his own shot, but it's not exactly easy to find a well-rounded PG that can make shots, defend, and distribute the ball either...

No doubt Kirk is a damn good player and an important part of our team, but if we are going to take one of them off the team we would be able to survive much more without Kirk than we would without Gordon.

I do think that if you took the team we have now, you could get rid of Hinrich and we'd be better than if you got rid of Gordon. However, I also think that finding a replacement SG for Gordon, who can score maybe not 20 ppg, but ~15 ppg, is more easily replaceable than a PG who does all that Hinrich does. Therefore, Kirk is more irreplaceable and more important to the team.

WOW. I am stunned that Kirk is more valued than Gordon (so far) . That does not make much sense to me.

In Tiers Of Superstardom this is what I see within our team , other players also listed to give example:

Tier 1 Kobe, Lebron ect ( top 1-15 ranked players)
Tier 2 Deng, Marion ( top 15-30 players)
Tier 3 Ben Gordon ( top 35-50 players)
Tier 4 Kirk Hinrich ( top 50-100)
Tier 5 Average Player

This is pretty much my line of thinking. They need Ben's 20 PPG more than anything else because of the Bulls scoring problem, due mainly to a lack of a real post player. At the sametime, it is easier to find a guy who can only score, than it is to find guys who do most other things in the NBA, so he might also be the easiest to replace. Paradoxical, huh?

I've come around on Gordon a lot as he's a much better player than he was even a year ago, however, he's still a one dimensional player. If Ben isn't scoring(and he does go through his droughts) then he's just a bad player and hurts the team when he's out there. Kirk is a very solid distributor and a great defender as well as being a decent scorer(obviously he's not Ben in the scoring department) but he's by far a better overall player. Yes, Ben's scoring is valuable to this team but I don't think it'd be that hard to replace him with a guy who might not be able to score 20 a game but who can make up for his scoring in other places. It'd be much harder imo to replace a good sized pg who can dish the ball and play fantastic defense.

Unfortunately, the only answer here is Kirk. You have to look at it on more than just the on-court level... He's the centerpiece of their Marketing campaign and the face of Chicago Bulls basketball, for better or for worse.

2nd team all defense

I respect Kirk and I like Kirk but I don't view him as an upper caliber player. Gordon isn't there yet but his scoring ability is something you can't teach. He's getting better and I think his room for growth far outweighs Kirk's. But then again, I'm the guy that knows nothing and the only one who constantly bashes Kirk while the rest of the site bashes Gordon when he has a 4-15 shooting night. Like none of the stars in the league have off nights. I've never seen one post from a Hinrich fan pissed about how he shot 4-15 on any given night.

Oh well. Eventually, everyone on this site is going to love Gordon. It probably won't happen until he hits the game winner in an NBA finals game. But it will happen and people will realize just how important Gordon is.

Besides Deng & Gordon, the improvement of Tyrus Thomas will most shape the future of this team. The future of this team won't be shaped on Kirk's ability or his defense. He sure couldn't defend Billups so frankly that defense is overrated like every other aspect of his game.

We have a new center for our marketing campaign. Crusty the Clown or Noah the Clown. Clown night at the UC. Wig night.

fish noah.

Some people just have a greater appreciation for the things that Kirk contributes outside of scoring. There are plenty of other PG's in the league that are considerably worse than him. You also have the undersized/weaker D/somewhat suspect ball-handling/low percentage concerns lingering a bit from the last few years with Gordon, though if he's going to give you over 20 a game I personally don't worry about that stuff anymore.

Yeah, Gordon's scoring has a big impact on this team (and for the record I did vote for him), but the ball-handling takes a MASSIVE hit if you're playing Gordon and Thabo, or if you play Duhon you lose a guy that can hit the open jumper when teams concentrate on Gordon and Deng. Guys that can successfully run an offense are hard to find, even talented guys like Marbury and Davis struggle with it for long stretches.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know Kirk isn't a superstar. Neither is Gordon though. Both are strong contributors on a good team though, which is really all that matters. Losing either player would hurt quite a bit. Our scoring would take a massive dive without Gordon, and without Kirk we turn into a team like Atlanta or the Knicks that has a good amount of talent but can't win because the wrong guys are taking shots at the wrong times.

Big card game going on there?