Woodz wrote:
AirP wrote:
Guess I'm in that 20% actual fans that's pretty indifferent with Ben Gordon. I want him back as a 6th man, ready to move forward without him.
Gordon's a great shooter but he has too many games "off" to allow him to free lance as much as he does in the Bulls offense as a starter. I can't remember the actual percentages I posted last month but... as a team it's tough to be consistant when one of your main options isn't consistant... he's a 25ppg guy part of the time, at nearly the same rate he's a 12 ppg guy, this isn't throttled by weather or not the team needs his scoring, it's throttled by weather he's on or off that particular evening.
He's a GREAT wildcard coming off the bench. But building an offense, it's got to be fustrating as hell to have such a question mark to one of your top scorers.
Ray Allen is pretty streaky, but the Celtics won a championship last year. If Gordon is our main option then we will be in trouble. But getting rid of him doesn't help the team get any farther in the playoffs. He would be a GREAT 3rd option if we can land a stud in the 2010 class. I also believe that simply having him on the team would help recruit one of the studs. If you are bosh/amare, do you want to play on a team devoid of 3pt shooters that can space the floor.
Obviously price is an issue, and i do not want him back for $12mill+ a year. But if we can get him around the $9mill range, i think you have to pull the trigger.
Ben Gordon doesn't seem like he's mentally(at this point in his career) has the ability to be a 3rd option for any decent length of time. He's still out there trying to prove himself and be as good as he thinks he can be, down the road he'll accept his role of hitting open jumpers and then creating his shot near the end of the shot clocks. I'd rather retain him, move him to 6th man and when he's in the game he can be the #1 option without disrupting the starting 5.
I just don't see the downside(of the current roster) of running with...
Starting 5: Rose, Salmons, Deng, Tyrus and Noah
Bench: Gordon, Miller, Hinrich
This is with Gordon having the green light the entire time in the game, he's an efficient high volume shooter, if he's off that night you stick with your starters a couple minutes more, if he's on you can rest your starters a few more minutes.
Gordon still gets his minutes, he's got a green light basically the whole time out there, the only difference, he's not taking shots away from the starters and he's coming off the bench.
Once he's signed, as long as there's no verbal agreements, we can utilize him anyway we need too. By the way, why throw numbers on his contract, let the market dictate his contract, if there's no money out there you can low ball him and if he doesn't like it he can take lesser money from someone else(which I very well doubt he'll do). He played hard ball last year wanting big money and lost, why reward him now when nobody else can or will give him big cash?
