Ben Gordon to Play for Great Britain

Ben Gordon has confirmed to Ian Whitell of The Times that he will make his debut for Great Britain this summer.

“I’m just hoping this summer I’ll be able to play,” Gordon said. “If everything goes according to plan, I will. I’m going to be an unrestricted free agent, which gives me a little bit more freedom with different teams. I’m hoping I can get my deal out of the way and move on with a clear mind.”

Born in Hammersmith, West London, Gordon moved to New York before his first birthday and, after his parents separated, Gordon would make annual summer visits to Wembley to see his family until into his teens, when his promising basketball career forced him to remain in the United States. “I used to love going to England,” Gordon said. “I used to come back and see all my cousins and relatives I hadn’t seen in a while. I have really good memories.

“I still have a lot of relatives in England and keep in touch with all of them. They come over and visit me in the summer, but I just haven’t been able to go back and forth as I would like to because of my schedule.

“I definitely do feel a tie with Britain. My Mum and some of her customs are very British. She brought me up having a cup of tea every morning, and two or three times during the day, which I guess is a British thing, and lots of my family still go back regularly and bring me tea and chocolates and things you can’t get here.

“I talk to my relatives in England regularly and they’re pumped about me playing, in fact they’d been hoping I would play the last couple of summers. Things didn’t go my way to do that, so I feel I let them down a little and I haven’t really spoken to them too much about it this year. I don’t want to get them too excited until I know I’m playing for sure.”

“We’re thrilled with how it’s gone with Ben,” Wuotila said. “He’s been easy to deal with and he’s a world-class scorer. He’s probably in the top ten to 20 players in the world in his ability to score the jump shot, penetrate to the basket. That’s hard to come by.”

Things should go much smoother for Ben this summer, as he will be an unrestricted free agent. This past summer, Gordon missed out on playing for Great Britain because of contract uncertainty, as his contract negotiations spilled into October, when he accepted the qualifying offer. This summer, as an unrestricted free agent, the market should move much quicker, and Gordon should have contract certainty within the first few days of July.

Great Britain will be playing in the 2009 European Championship in Poland this summer in an attempt to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London. Great Britain has been placed in a group with Spain, Serbia, and Slovenia.

The process for getting Gordon to play should be much smoother than it has been for Deng. Gordon has not suffered any serious injuries during his career, and will avoid the insurance mess that Deng was in last year.

Ben Gordon should be one of the premier players to play internationally. Gordon’s game is perfectly suited for the current FIBA rules thanks to his elite jumpshooting.

Great Britain also is looking to add Kelenna Azubuike to their roster for this summer.

With Kelenna Azubuike, Ben Gordon, and Luol Deng on the roster, Great Britain will have a realistic chance at becoming the 2009 European champions.