BullsByTheHorns on the Gordon/Hinrich debate

[Shakes]

It's still a somewhat chicken-and-egg problem because teams that know they are bad try to cut costs and rebuild. Unless you're the Knicks with a ton of horrible contracts you can usually get under the tax fairly quickly if you know you don't have a championship contender.

 

[Hendu0520]

I know that we have to probably get rid of Kirk if we wanna keep Gordon but they don't even play the same position and bring totally different things to the table for the team. I don't understand the debate, we have a better PG so unfortunately Hinrich has to go if we can't keep both.

 

[Ralphb07]

Hendu0520 wrote:

I know that we have to probably get rid of Kirk if we wanna keep Gordon but they don't even play the same position and bring totally different things to the table for the team. I don't understand the debate, we have a better PG so unfortunately Hinrich has to go if we can't keep both.

It's more about money. Kirk can play minutes at the SG he just can't be a starter at the SG spot. With JR not wanting to pay the tax Kirk would have to go base on not having the minutes for him and pushing us over the LT.


I'm not saying I agree or disagree because I'm in the middle on all this and think no matter if we sign BG and lose Kirk or keep Kirk and lose BG that we'll still be good next year, that The Bulls thinking could be looking towards the future of 2010 and beyond they feel having Kirk's contract which is shorter is better going forward

There will be players in 2011 and 2012 that will be Free Agents too and it's not just 2010 or bust, also in that time there be big name guys avail so I feel the Bulls want to be position themselves for that

If we were financially set the past two years we might of gotten Gasol or even been able to offer the Suns instant savings for Amare which could of been the icing on the cake

IMO why they picked Deng over BG is it's hard having two guys that need the ball in there hands so much and that could be a major problem with Rose/Gordon. With Deng when he's healthy he scores 15-18 but doesn't need the ball and plays defense and rebounds. So when you look at our team we got the main guy in Rose the 3rd guy in Deng that doesn't need the ball in his hands and the next is the big.

 

[clonetrooper264]

I suppose it really depends on what the Bulls want to do: win now or build for the future. In terms of winning now, it makes sense to sign Ben. However, for the future, keeping Kirk is a bit more valuable since his contract expires right when Rose will get a max deal extension. Ben's contract would intersect with that and could potentially put us in some financial troubles there. The win now perspective also involves getting a superstar PF whereas in the build for the future deal, that's not completely necessary as there will be other FAs in the future as Ralphb07 said.

 

[Hendu0520]

Ok I understand Ben's would be a longer contract but Kirk's is past 2010. We did a list in the other forum about the guards better than Ben, there aren't many. Most of the guys ahead of Ben are free agents in 2010 not 11 and the rest like Roy are gonna be locked up for years. Our goal is a big man, so signing Ben to 8-11 million dollar deal say 3 yrs and moving Hinrich to get some front court help would be better than keeping Hinrich and trying to get a great SG with Ben's money. Plus Ben should be making around 12 million but probably won't see that money so he will be a great bargain in reality. Where as you don't wanna be paying 9 mil to a back up.

Oh and somehow Kirk lost his shot, so he is no longer a good fill at the 2 guard spot. 2 yrs now so I don't know if his shooting is coming back.

 

[wjb1492]

Hendu0520 wrote:

Oh and somehow Kirk lost his shot, so he is no longer a good fill at the 2 guard spot. 2 yrs now so I don't know if his shooting is coming back.

Kirk's shot was fine this year (43% overall, 41% from 3, and better on both in the playoffs). That doesn't mean he'd be a great option at starting SG, but his shot was far from lost.

You can make a great argument supporting Ben without trashing Kirk, particularly when you aren't even trashing him accurately.

 

[dougthonus]

Hendu0520 wrote:

I know that we have to probably get rid of Kirk if we wanna keep Gordon but they don't even play the same position and bring totally different things to the table for the team. I don't understand the debate, we have a better PG so unfortunately Hinrich has to go if we can't keep both.

It depends on how you frame it.

If you frame it as:

We have a starting PG (Rose), SG (Salmons), and SF (Deng) then who is the better back up Hinrich or Gordon, you can make the case that it's Hinrich. If you start Rose, Gordon, and Deng or Rose, Gordon, and Salmons, then you don't have as much versatility off the bench.

 

[Hendu0520]

Really WBJ1492? Since when is 43% from the field good? Our rookie who supposedly can't shoot shot 47%, ok his 3 pointer came back but his shot is off, His best year was 46% which is considerably higher, that was '07 and he was supposed to improve on that as well if you remember. Last year he shot 42% and 35% 3pointers, this year in ONLY 51 games he shot 43% and 40% 3pointer. Like I said he can't be a 2 guard at all with that shot. Oh and he doesn't draw fouls, he is a point guard only. He can defend 2's he can't play offense as a 2.

 

[dougthonus]

Oh and somehow Kirk lost his shot, so he is no longer a good fill at the 2 guard spot. 2 yrs now so I don't know if his shooting is coming back.

Hinrich's averaged 39.2% from the 3 point line over the past 3 years. 41.5%, 35%, and 40.8%. The 35% is proably the league average for a guard, but the other two numbers are bordering on really, really good 3 point shooter numbers given his attempts. Kirk's defense was also very good this year.

Maybe it's time to give Kirk the benefit of the doubt after a very good season and say 06/07 Kirk is who he was, 07/08 Kirk was the anomaly, because 08/09 Kirk was basically 06/07 Kirk again. He played really well this season.

 

[Rose1]

He can still get hot from distance and we've saw that in the Boston series. He's just not a long-term option aside Rose. Last and finally, Hinrich has to leave. Period, we have our point guard and he's from the southside of Chicago. Ben Gordon might not get sign because his financial needs will hamper us from getting that inside presence that will provide us high percentage shots. It's not a Gordon and Hinrich thing. Hinrich had his turn and it didn't work. So as a result, Kirk has to turn the keys over. Sure he can commit turnovers but he's not a prototypical SG that I can see playing alongside Rose. He just won't help Rose deliver a Championship. Ben Gordon just want money that unfortunately isn't there because of the senseless Deng signing.

 

[Rose1]

This should be the easiest problem to solve. If no one want Kirk then you keep him until the contract is ceased. If Gordon want millions beyond understandable then we can't sign him. You don't want the Phili situation. They're literally in a hole. You do what's best for the team. You don't do stuff for individuals.

 

[Hendu0520]

I wasn't trashing Kirk, I was just saying he is not a good shooter, and he's not good enough to put at the 2 shooting anyway. If Ben or Jordan shot 43% we would have run them out of town

 

[Hendu0520]

Personally I want to keep the team together unless we can package anyone but Rose in a trade for a superstar during the draft or this offseason. If we can't get a Big man superstar then keep the team till trade deadline, with Deng coming back, JR take one year of a hit on the luxury tax and see what happens. If Tyrus and Noah don't improve enough make changes if they do maybe we stick with this team for the year.

 

[dougthonus]

I wasn't trashing Kirk, I was just saying he is not a good shooter, and he's not good enough to put at the 2 shooting anyway. If Ben or Jordan shot 43% we would have run them out of town

Gordon's career numbers:
43.7% FG% 41.5% 3p%

Hinrich's numbers last year:
43.7% FG% 40.8% 3p%

Gordon is a better shooter given that he has so much extra attention devoted to him, but Hinrich is still a fine shooter based on the last three years. 40% 3 point shooting is darn good shooting.

 

[wjb1492]

Hendu0520 wrote:

Really WBJ1492? Since when is 43% from the field good? Our rookie who supposedly can't shoot shot 47%, ok his 3 pointer came back but his shot is off, His best year was 46% which is considerably higher, that was '07 and he was supposed to improve on that as well if you remember. Last year he shot 42% and 35% 3pointers, this year in ONLY 51 games he shot 43% and 40% 3pointer. Like I said he can't be a 2 guard at all with that shot. Oh and he doesn't draw fouls, he is a point guard only. He can defend 2's he can't play offense as a 2.

If you rank all the guards in the NBA by shooting stats on nba.com, Kirk ranks T70 this year out of 182 in overall fg%. That sounds pretty "good" to me - not "great", but certainly above average. That's 88th out of 182 on 2pt fg%, and a stellar T28th on 3pt fg%. And 51 games is hardly a small sample size - but he shot even better than his season averages in the next 7 games, giving him a sample size of 58 with even better shooting.

In 07/08 he shot pretty darn poorly for him and was still 82nd out of 180 NBA guards on 3pt fg% and 101st out of 180 on 2pt fg%. And that season's fg% were substantially brought down by a truly pathetic and nightmarish November (.331, .171 from 3). If you exclude that awful November he shot 43.1% overall, 44.2% from 2, and 38% from 3.

You can run around shouting that Ben shoots better than Kirk all you want. Heck, if you want to say that Kirk's shot was lost in November 2007 and you're never going to let it go, then I'll be forced to agree with you. But he has shot the ball fine this year, and acceptably for most of last year.

 

[MADman24]

I would love to keep Gordon, I think he is a better player than Hinrich, however not only can I not see us trading Kirk to keep Gordon but I don't know if I would do that.

Kirk eventually has to go simply because we can't pay the backup PG and SG 9.5 mill and I think he might have more value in a trade particularly in a deal for Amar'e,the Suns could use a real PG on the roster to replace Nash. But if we choose Gordon over Hinrich then we would need a backup PG who would have to steal a few minutes a night or rely on Gordon to run the point.

AS much as it pains me to lose a player for nothing, especially arguably the team's best player, a 20 ppg scorer and best clutch performer, I think we might not have any real options unless Reinsdorf is suddenly willing to go into the Luxury Tax to keep both. With that said I think we would be a better team if we could find a decent backup PG and keep Gordon instead of Hinrich but I simply can't see that happening and I think it makes more sense financially to keep Kirk instead of Gordon.

And in the long run if Rose develops the way we all hope and if Deng is healthy moving forward we should be ok going forward without Gordon.

 

[Hendu0520]

dougthonus wrote:

I wasn't trashing Kirk, I was just saying he is not a good shooter, and he's not good enough to put at the 2 shooting anyway. If Ben or Jordan shot 43% we would have run them out of town

Gordon's career numbers:
43.7% FG% 41.5% 3p%

Hinrich's numbers last year:
43.7% FG% 40.8% 3p%

Gordon is a better shooter given that he has so much extra attention devoted to him, but Hinrich is still a fine shooter based on the last three years. 40% 3 point shooting is darn good shooting.

Well I already said his three improved I gave you that, and his FG% is probably low because he can't finish at the rim. But I like the stats trick Doug, lol. You can't compare 1 year to a career you know that. Let's take a look here.

Hinrich's career FG%: 41.5% (Over a long period of time a small amount of % difference is more significant) Ben's is 2.2% higher which is considerable.

Gordon's first 2 yrs in the league he shot 41% and 42% fg then it jumped to 45.5% and he avg. 20ppg for the first time 06, 07. In his down year last year he shot 43.4% from the field. And this year it is back up to 45.5% again. With Rose improving even more, this percentage should go up even more, getting defenders away from Gordon, wow, it could be lethal.

Kirk: Best year 06,07 44.8% and this year 43.7% not bad but 45% and up is where most good SG's are at. Even 45% is low, maybe that's why some people wann run Gordon out, but like you said Doug Gordon is facing double and triple teams constantly. These percentages for Kirk are mostly spotting up. And 06/07 Kirk had 1 more year under his belt.

Kirk's overall FG% really has been ok for a PG but not for a SG: 38.6%, 39.7%, 41.8%, 44.8%, 41.4%, 43.7%

 

[Hendu0520]

wjb1492 wrote:

Hendu0520 wrote:

Really WBJ1492? Since when is 43% from the field good? Our rookie who supposedly can't shoot shot 47%, ok his 3 pointer came back but his shot is off, His best year was 46% which is considerably higher, that was '07 and he was supposed to improve on that as well if you remember. Last year he shot 42% and 35% 3pointers, this year in ONLY 51 games he shot 43% and 40% 3pointer. Like I said he can't be a 2 guard at all with that shot. Oh and he doesn't draw fouls, he is a point guard only. He can defend 2's he can't play offense as a 2.

If you rank all the guards in the NBA by shooting stats on nba.com, Kirk ranks T70 this year out of 182 in overall fg%. That sounds pretty "good" to me - not "great", but certainly above average. That's 88th out of 182 on 2pt fg%, and a stellar T28th on 3pt fg%. And 51 games is hardly a small sample size - but he shot even better than his season averages in the next 7 games, giving him a sample size of 58 with even better shooting.

In 07/08 he shot pretty darn poorly for him and was still 82nd out of 180 NBA guards on 3pt fg% and 101st out of 180 on 2pt fg%. And that season's fg% were substantially brought down by a truly pathetic and nightmarish November (.331, .171 from 3). If you exclude that awful November he shot 43.1% overall, 44.2% from 2, and 38% from 3.

You can run around shouting that Ben shoots better than Kirk all you want. Heck, if you want to say that Kirk's shot was lost in November 2007 and you're never going to let it go, then I'll be forced to agree with you. But he has shot the ball fine this year, and acceptably for most of last year.

Not saying he is a bad shooter for a PG. Those rankings don't sound great to me anyways and by the way what are Gordon's rankings there you didn't post those I bet he is higher in every category you put up there for Kirk.

 

[Hendu0520]

LOL, even 3point shooting Gordon has never dipped below 40% and Kirk has only shot over 40% from 3 twice. Ben is a better shooter, I wasn't even saying Kirk had to be as good as Ben but if you wanna try and say Kirk is just as good that is just crazy.

 

[Ralphb07]

Hendu0520 Kirk is not the starting SG and he won't be next year. What Kirk is for this team is a combo guard that comes off the bench to play 13 minutes at PG and 10-13 at SG. He'll bring defense and a calmness to the 2nd unit. He won't create his shot but will hit the open ones.

Kirk is no BG when it comes to shooting but it doesn't mean he can't shoot. Kirk deserves more respect then what he gets.

IMO Kirk has a good shot at 6th man of the year in 09/10.