Bring back Air Gordon!

 Obviously influenced by me [1], the Bulls signed Luol Deng to a six-year deal worth up to $80 million, ending an awkward saga in which Deng threatened to leave the team next year if he didn’t have a contract in place by the start of the Olympics [2].  The signing is a good one: Despite his mild regression last season, Deng is tall for his position, can ice shots from anywhere inside the 3-point arc, is a pretty good defender (believe it or not, stastically he's been the Bulls’ best defender the last few years), and so forth.  

I could go on, but I won’t; all I can say is that I’m extremely pleased about the signing, since Deng still hasn’t peaked as a player. If he rebounds from last year’s disastrous season and stretches just far enough to hit the 20-10 level (it’s not that much of a stretch: he averaged a 19-7 just two years ago), then he’ll finally get some All-Star recognition. Remember, Josh Howard is an All-Star in the West (and coveted by some GMs as more valuable than recent MVP Dirk Nowitzki), and he averages a 20-7 with a worse field goal percentage than Deng (he’s also 4 years older than Deng). I can’t wait.

But now we enter the more problematic signing: the question of what to do with Ben Gordon.  After the Deng signing, the Bulls only have around $8 million left in cap space, which is probably less than Gordon wants per year. As I touched on last week, the Bulls are reportedly floating the idea of putting Kirk Hinrich at the shooting guard and getting rid of Gordon in a sign-and-trade for another player.  

There are a couple of perspectives on this. On one hand, Gordon is a better shooter than Hinrich in every category (FG%, 3PT%, True Shooting %, FT%, etc), he has a better offensive game in general, and he’s certainly more of a threat to have a colossal scoring game. On the other, Hinrich plays better defense (which Gordon is a career non-factor on)… and really, that’s all I can think of. Hinrich is unable to create his own offense, which most premier shooting guards can do. If you watch videos of him [3], he only drives to the hoop if he has an open path, or takes shots if he has open looks; otherwise, he forces shots even with defenders in his face, often without attempting to move the ball around. I watched too many games last year in which I groaned in frustration at the poor shots Hinrich would continue to take over and over again. I remember during one particularly bad effort, I texted my friend simply to say, “I will hire someone to break Hinrich’s legs the next time he bricks a three.”  

I feel bad about turning on Hinrich after years of being the team’s de-facto leader, both as a point guard and a high draft pick, but I really don’t think he’d be a good fit at shooting guard. Plus, do you think his ego could take it? After years of being the team’s point guard, he’d be shuffled aside to make room for the franchise’s new golden boy, Derrick Rose [4]. For a team that was plagued with chemistry issues last season, it seems unlikely that the position change would create any good feelings, and even though Hinrich is a nice guy, some things bother you no matter what.

Ben Gordon has his slights against him, namely that he doesn’t play defense very well and is inconsistent with his shooting. He can score 50 points in a night or he can score 5, and there’s still the argument that he’s best as a sixth man, where his numbers have usually been better than as a starter.  He can disappear in big games as well, only putting up one decent effort against the Pistons in 2007, with his share of stinkers against the Heat and the Wizards in previous years.  

But if Rose develops into an elite point guard, who’s to say how Gordon’s numbers will be affected? Rose will throw him better passes, draw double-teams at times, and will almost certainly compensate for his lack of defense (much like Hinrich has done, but more so). Of course, the Rose argument is kind of moot because he hasn’t played a game yet (only a few months left!) but on his own merits, there’s plenty of evidence to support Gordon being a better shooting guard than Hinrich.

More problematic, though, is the question of how we’ll be able to afford Gordon, given that Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t want to cross the luxury tax for a non-championship team. To be fair, he shouldn’t, but he should also be able to see that the Bulls won’t even sniff the championship for a year or two until Rose gets better, and when he does, that Gordon will be a key part of making a championship run. Come June, it’ll be better to have a shooting guard who can create his own shot, drive to the hoop, and make clutch free throws than whatever the hell Kirk Hinrich will do.

The Bulls can clear cap space through trading; I’m not going to waste space by talking about that. There are rumors of the Bulls trying to execute a sign-and-trade, but those could just be rumors.  One thing is for sure: Signing Gordon to a new contract is not impossible. Therefore, the Bulls should pursue that.