The Daily Herald was able to get in an interview with Ben Gordon to print an article for the paper. According to this article, Ben Gordon sees the writing on the wall and has concrete offers from European teams that he can fall back on as a last resort.

Here is a snippet of the article:

Ben Gordon hasn’t given up on staying with the Bulls, but he does see the writing on the wall.

The Bulls don’t want to pay the luxury tax, and unless that policy changes, they have a finite amount of money to offer Gordon to start a new contract.

Add it up over six years, and the restricted free agent would have to accept a smaller average salary (about $9.8 million) than the team offered him last summer.

“It looks that way,” he said Friday. “I don’t think they want to lose their leading scorer for nothing. Maybe they do, I don’t know.”

Gordon, the Bulls’ top scorer for three straight seasons, knows his alternatives to accepting the team’s offer are not ideal. He says he has concrete offers from European teams, but those seem to be a last resort.

“I think, for me, I’d like to just have some clarity. We have all these guys at one position. I think things should work out naturally. There’s no reason it shouldn’t, for myself and the organization.”

Gordon said he’d like to set a deadline for getting his contract resolved, but he didn’t want to name a date and clearly wants to give the process more time. He also will not join Luol Deng on the Great Britain national team next month unless his contract is signed.

“All you need is one,” Gordon said of a potential trade partner. “You don’t need 29. All you need is one. A sign-and-trade, both sides would have to agree, so we’ll see what happens.

“I want to make it clear to the fans that I want to come back. But something good has to be done that both sides feel comfortable with. That’s pretty much it.”

Source: Daily Herald

Things are probably not as gloomy as the media has been putting out there. Keep in mind, Tuesday afternoon, ESPN was saying that the Bulls weren’t willing to offer Luol Deng what they were last year and that Luol Deng was the most likely restricted free agent to take the qualifying offer. Later that night, news broke out that Luol Deng had agreed with the Bulls to a $71 million contract.

The gap between Gordon and the Bulls doesn’t even seem large enough for concern. The Bulls can offer Ben Gordon approximately $58 million, about $9.7 million per a year, before they hit the luxury tax. This is widely assumed to be what the Bulls are offering Gordon. According to HoopsWorld, Ben Gordon is looking for something in the $11 million per year range, or $66 million for the total deal. It does not seem like the Bulls will have too much difficulty bridging an $8 million gap.

If the Bulls truly fear the luxury tax, they have a few options. They could take back less salary in a Kirk Hinrich or Andres Nocioni trade. The Bulls could also try packaging Cedric Simmons and their 2010 first round pick to a team who is approximately $1.7 million under the cap still. This would allow the Bulls to give Gordon a contract he will be happy with and not have to worry about the cap hold of a 2010 draft pick, giving them more flexibility in 2010.

If the Bulls are serious about retaining Ben Gordon, this affair shouldn’t drag on much longer, given that Reinsdorf is handling the negotiations and the gap is so small.