I've found out Gordon's official contract numbers, and they're on the high end of what we've heard throughout the media.
09-10 $10,000,000
10-11 $10,800,000
11-12 $11,600,000
12-13 $12,400,000
13-14 $13,200,000 (Player Option)
5 Years for $58,000,000.
He also has a clause for incentives which are considered unlikely (meaning he didn't reach them last season), but I don't specifically know what they are.
Gordon's official contract numbers
As I've said before, I loved Ben Gordon at 9 million per year. At 11.6 million per year with incentives to push up the contract to who knows how much more, I'm not so sure.
What is definitely for certain now is that Ben Gordon bested any contract offer he ever received from the Bulls. As he's making 51.2 million over the five years that would have been the Bulls first offer (5/50) with a player option for 13.2 in the 6th year, or he's making 64.4 million over the same 6 years the Bulls offer last year of 6/54 would have been.
As I said before, from a contract perspective, Ben Gordon came out ahead by taking the QO and was the first person to do so. Now, even looking at the 5/50 offer the Bulls made, Gordon was the clear winner by waiting even disregarding the circumstances that at the time of the 5/50 offer he was the best or second best player on a team expected to contend for a championship.
Also, it's clear to me that the Bulls probably made the right decision by not overpaying for Gordon to keep him. I'm sad they passed up on him last year at 6/54, but that decision is in the past in gone. I no longer feel the need to complain about it. Looking at this summer in a vaccuum, Gordon made it clear he was not giving the Bulls a discount. At around 12 million a year, I'm okay with Ben Gordon moving on to another team, and it seems like that's the number we'd have needed to hit to keep him.
What is definitely for certain now is that Ben Gordon bested any contract offer he ever received from the Bulls. As he's making 51.2 million over the five years that would have been the Bulls first offer (5/50) with a player option for 13.2 in the 6th year, or he's making 64.4 million over the same 6 years the Bulls offer last year of 6/54 would have been.
As I said before, from a contract perspective, Ben Gordon came out ahead by taking the QO and was the first person to do so. Now, even looking at the 5/50 offer the Bulls made, Gordon was the clear winner by waiting even disregarding the circumstances that at the time of the 5/50 offer he was the best or second best player on a team expected to contend for a championship.
Also, it's clear to me that the Bulls probably made the right decision by not overpaying for Gordon to keep him. I'm sad they passed up on him last year at 6/54, but that decision is in the past in gone. I no longer feel the need to complain about it. Looking at this summer in a vaccuum, Gordon made it clear he was not giving the Bulls a discount. At around 12 million a year, I'm okay with Ben Gordon moving on to another team, and it seems like that's the number we'd have needed to hit to keep him.
22 Comments
TheStig said:
I'm sorry Doug, but I can't just let go of the 6/54 like you did. We all knew Ben was worth more and really worth much more to this team in particular. The petty and indecisive front office shouldn't be let off the hook so easily, they clearly decided to opt for worse yes men for more money and more injury prone. With Rose and BG we had two of the three components to complete a championship core. Is there any doubt in anyones mind that had we kept BG and made the proposed Kirk and Tyrus for Boozer deal that we wouldn't be contending? Instead we will be struggling to make the playoffs behind our golden boys kirk and deng. But we will continue to allow them to go around saying BG wanted to much when in reality, he agreed to a lesser offer last year.
Doug Thonus said:
I feel your frustration, but, yes I doubt we'd be contending if we had BG and swapped Gordon/Boozer. I don't think I'd trust Boozer to be healthy, and I think Gordon's on the ball style of play still doesn't mesh as well with Rose as it could if he was more of a Ray Allen type, but that may be more on Vinny in the way he runs the offense than on Gordon for the way he performs in it.
We'd also be 10 million over the luxury tax in that case, which I don't think management would be willing to do for that roster. I definitely wouldn't want to be locked into it with a Boozer extension.
TheStig said:
Doug, I have to disagree. We would have a completely stacked lineup and Boozer would comeback motivated for a contract year. Look at our lineup:
Rose/Pargo/Hunter
BG/Salmons
Deng or Salmons/Johnson
Boozer/Noah/Johnson/Gibson
Noah/Miller/Gray?
There is no way that team isn't top 4 in the east and at least in the semis and probably contending. They have great size everywhere of BG and have all the scoring and rebounding in the world with Noah, Deng, and Boozer. Even with Boozer injured, we are still a better team than last year and as long as boozer doesn't have a season ending injury we would have him for the playoffs.
Doug Thonus said:
What does being top 4 in the East mean? Top 4 in the east doesn't make us a contender. You can't say top 3, because you know that Boston, Orlando, and Cleveland are all better than us still if healthy.
That team would be a train wreck defensively.
TheStig said:
Top 4 in the east gives us a fighting chance. I really don't think Clevland and Orlando are really that good outside of Howard and Lebron. An injury or rapid decline to the aging Shaq, Big Z or Carter leaves them back at square one and we all saw what happened to the celtics. KG's injury was much more serious then let on and there still isn't word of him being recovered. The top 3 in the east look good on paper but a key injury to any of aging group and they are sitting ducks. Look at this past year, if we had boozer, we would have beat the celtics and would have had a really good chance at both the magic and cavs.
I don't think our defense would be as bad as you let on. Rose will be coming back better at D and a lot of our defensive issues came from giving up a lot of second chance points. Boozer would solve a lot of the rebounding problems. I think with solid defense on the wings and Noah, we would at least be average. Is our defense going to be any more promising this upcoming year without BG and Boozer?
Doug Thonus said:
First, I'm totally fine agreeing to disagree. I can see why people would be excited about the team you named. I'm just not one of them. I think it has too many scorers who need too many shots and not enough facilitators, defenders, and team players. The team you mentioned is also WAY over the luxury tax barrier, so we know it couldn't be constructed.
Our defense will be better with Hinrich and without Gordon. Boozer is a separate part of that equation. I hope we can still get Boozer in the oft-discussed Hinrich/Tyrus for Boozer swap.
TheStig said:
I can see that its a bit overloaded with scores but we still have Rose, who with boozer can run the perfect pick and roll offense with Ben spreading the court. I think one really good point guard is enough of a facilator. Look at the cavs and magic, going into this season they really only facilitate through their stars. As far as defenders, Deng, Salmons, Noah are good defenders and Boozer, Deng, Noah would control the boards. I don't think anyone in my scenario is below average defensively and they will get a big boost from controlling the boards because Deng, Noah and boozer are above average rebounders for their position.
As far as being well over the LT, well there in lies the problem. We would only be over the LT for next yr and I think we can agree that team would at least make the second round. I think the 2010 screen we are putting up is all smoke and mirrors because if we were serious we be desperately trying to trade kirk and deng for cap space to have room for two max deals. Instead we shake our heads at a rental 20/10 big man for kirk and someones rights we will have to renounance to use our cap space. I'm sorry, I just lost all confidence in the fact that we are trying to build a contender instead of a perineal first round lovable loser like the cubs. And even they have tried to improve. I just don't see the commitment to winning with large deals like 5/47 and 6/71 for average players and loosing a very good scorer and outside shooter for 6/54. Even if we somehow defy all odds and nab bosh, are we going to contend with the main pieces only being rose, bosh, kirk, deng and maybe noah?
Doug Thonus said:
To take it one step farther, I think that team might be better swapping Hinrich and Gordon. That team has good pure scorers in Salmons, Boozer, and Rose. It has solid offensive players in Deng and hopefully James Johnson.
Would you rather add a pure scorer who needs a lot of shots and is only an adequate defender or a very good perimeter defender who doesn't need lots of shots and is an average offensive player?
TheStig said:
I think that is still a solid team but it doesn't have quite the offensive firepower or depth that my team does. Your bench is Pargo, Johnson, Miller. Salmons would be the best wing bench player in the league. You are also counting on Salmon's being significantly better at guarding sg's while he has more length than BG, he is slower, older and more injury prone. Salmons is better at guarding SF's because he can stay in front of them much easier, I don't think he has the foot speed to be much better at guarding SGs. He will be at least as good as BG none the less guarding SG's but I would rather have the better scorer and stretch the floor more. I think BG is really underrated here, he will have a career similar to Ray Allen's before all is said and done. As time goes on and with his deal secured, he would give more the lead to rose. You don't really mention that Rose wasn't really looking for shots this year and really deferring to others.
Doug Thonus said:
If Gordon played like Ray Allen I would have really wanted to keep him, but he plays more like Michael Redd. From a statistical view all three players put up similar stats, but Ray Allen works almost 100% off the ball while Redd/Gordon both spend a very significant amount of time on the ball.
TheStig said:
Doug, I don't know how you can say that, Allen's career usage % is the same as BG's last year. It is skewed before because of his role as instant offense but when he got minutes and didn't have to come in and fire shots. He also will settle into his role more as Rose takes control of the team. Also as presently constructed, we don't have any clutch players on this team. Rose is good and developing but wasn't he really bad at taking the final shot? I think BG is much closer to Allen than Redd. You can also rely on Kirk to defender better than Kirk but he certainly isn't going to save you the 10ppg that he outscored kirk by last year.
Doug Thonus said:
Allen has the same usage, but it's the way he gets his shots. He gets almost all of them off the ball on turn arounds and running off screens. Gordon gets a huge chunk of his shots in isolation.
Points per game aren't an important metric to me. It's about how efficiently you scored and having enough players who can score efficiently. Hinrich actually scored pretty efficiently last year (similar to Gordon), it's just that his usage was lower, so he doesn't need to pick up 10 points, but as a team we need to get 10 more points at high efficiency.
TheStig said:
Doug, your looking at a old Allen that is a third option. A younger Allen on the sonics used to get his shots in a similar fashion to BG.
Common with your efficiency statement. By that logic we should be force feeding the ball to Noah since he has the highest TS% on the team and the most efficient option. What makes BG such a good scorer is the volume he can do at a efficient rate. By that logic the lakers could swap Kobe for BG and be better off since BG has the higher ts%. They have enough players to make up the volume.
Doug Thonus said:
We need Gordon to play like "3rd option Ray Allen". If he's going to play with Rose.
I agree with your point that efficiency and volume and creation all work together to be important. However, we're building the team to have Rose be the primary creation player.
Gordon's creation ability doesn't mean as much, and Kirk isn't a player who's only hitting open dunks and garbage points like Noah.
TheStig said:
I agree, that BG should be the third option, when we acquire a post big. But throughout his career here he didn't have that opportunity. He was clearly the best option the previous 4 years and last year was the default option to a hesitant rookie PG. Nothing about him says that he couldn't fit the appropriate role on this team. I don't think BG's game would suffer much from giving up a shot or two per game. I don't think BG wants to be the focal point of the offense. Rose just needed to step up and take it. He wasn't ready.
BG's creation doesn't mean as much with Rose but you still need at least two guys who can create their own shot and usaully 3 to be a contender. While Kirk isn't only hitting garbage shots, he is pretty much only taking open jumpers and layups. The efficency difference is broken down when you compare the degree of difficulty. NBA defenses are going to make someone else make the shots besides Rose now. Your left with Salmons, Miller and a bunch of inconsistent players. This team isn't going anywhere. If they want a chance to be a solid team, they better make the proposed Boozer deal because that is the only way they are anything more than a 7-8 seed, if that.
Doug Thonus said:
I agree with you that this team isn't going anywhere past a 7-8 seed. I don't think it would be significantly different if we kept Gordon and moved Hinrich/Salmons instead though.
TheStig said:
I agree that we aren't going past 7-8 seed but that was a ceiling. The difference between BG and Kirk could be playoffs. To be honest, I don't even think its right to be comparing Salmons, kirk and BG. Last year proved they could all play together and be successful, its only through self imposed budgets that require league leading profits that we aren't able to keep everyone. Its not like the $10 mill in LT payments would make the bulls unprofitable.
Doug Thonus said:
I also agree that you need more guys who can create their own shot, but I think Salmons can create his own shot as well, so can Kirk. Neither as well as Gordon, but well enough to be ancillary players for a year.
I'd rather have Gordon, but I don't think it's going to make a huge difference in the season if we compare Gordon to Kirk given our current roster makeup.
TheStig said:
See, I disagree that kirk can reliably create his own shot. The reason our offense worked so well last year was that Rose, BG and Salmons could all create their own shot efficiently. Kirk might be able to make some open shots here and there but he can't get to the line or create like BG and Salmons also hasn't proven he could be a second option on a playoff team. To infer that both can step it up accordingly is not likely. We also lost our leading guy getting to the line. Lets lay the cards on the table. It really isn't about Kirk vs BG vs Salmons, this wasn't done as a basketball decision. Thats what angers me, it is all about maintaining the league leading profit by a wide margin. We don't have a basketball owner like a lot of other basketball teams. We have a bean counter running the show.
Bigway said:
Doug, you seem to be the only one with a clue today. Apparently the site has been invaded by the Gordon loving clones from DBagaBull.
Anyone notice how Piston fans are less than thrilled to have acquired Gordon. Is it possable that people in Detroit are smarter than people in Chicago, I shutter to think so.
Unfortunatley, those of us who understand that Gordon will never be a starting 2 guard on any team that wins a championship, or makes the finals, or even makes the conference finals will have to take our lumps for the next several months or maybe even a year or so.
by then the Bulls will have put themselves in championship contention with 2010 free agency and Piston fans will be pulling thier hair out thinking about paying Gordon $12 and $13 million thru 2014, much like we will be pulling out ours thinking about paying Deng the same money. And nobody will even be thinking about Hinrich by then.
Everyone has been trying to make this a Gordon vs Hinrich debate, but it has always really been between Gordon and Deng. The Bulls chose Deng, wrong or right, but paying both that kind of money was never an option. They will both turn out to be overpaid when all is said and done.
So, for the rational among us just remember, patience is a virtue, much like teamwork. Time heals all wounds and vindicates the sane among us.
Doug Thonus said:
This year, it woudl have cost quite a bit more to keep him, and I agree with you that at 12 million a year it wasn't going to happen.
I agree that we'll get over the loss of Gordon for sure. I'll think the team always screwed up for not taking the 6/54 deal Gordon agreed to last year, but if we get a 2010 guy next year that screwup won't be noticed at all. History will be rewritten to show that the Bulls needed to lose Gordon even though that won't really be accurate.What would be sad is if we get Chris Bosh, and get close, and Gordon goes on to play extremely well, Hinrich regresses, and we're basically a Ben Gordon away from a title knowing we had the chance to swap Hinrich/Gordon on the roster last season and choose not to. We'll see though.
chisoxmike said:
Detroit = Dumb
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