Ben Gordon Is a Detroit Kind of Guy

February 17th, 2009 by Andrew Wamboldt

In 2006, the Chicago Bulls stole away Ben Wallace from the Detroit Pistons. There weren’t any early rumors saying that the Bulls would pursue Wallace, but there were rumblings from fans that it would make sense.

Could Ben Gordon become part of Detroit basketball tradition? (photo by femaletrumpet02 on Flickr)

This time, the roles are reversed. The Detroit Pistons are the team with cap space and the Bulls are the team with a Ben hitting free agency. That is, Ben Gordon, the Chicago Bulls leading scorer, who will become an unrestricted free agent this summer after the Bulls failed to re-sign him two summers in a row. Could the Pistons sign Ben Gordon? Pistons beat writer A. Sherrod Blakely thinks they can.

Blakely appeared on The Huge Show to talk about the Detroit Pistons and the trade deadline. When asked about what players the Pistons could bring in within the next year and a half, Blakely had this to say:

“The more I watch him play, the more I could see Detroit making a run for him this summer, and that’s Ben Gordon of Chicago. Ben Gordon, if you look at the guys Joe Dumars has brought to Detroit, who’ve done well, they’ve been in their mid twenties, they haven’t really had the kind of success that maybe their talent might suggest they have, and they really are in need of a new home, an new location, and they seem to thrive in Detroit. I definitely could see Ben Gordon being one of those guys that Joe Dumars and his staff targets this summer and mak a really strong push for.”

One of these players is Chauncey Billups, who is now with the Denver Nuggets. In his five seasons before coming to the Pistons, Billups averaged 11.3 PPG and 4.2 APG, and did not look like much of a point guard. Billups, who was taken third overall just like Gordon, came to Detroit and resurrected his career.

Could Ben Gordon do the same, and fill the void that was created when the Pistons traded Chauncey Billups? Ben Gordon, who is averaging 18.3 PPG 3.0 APG in his first five years in the league, is obviously doing much better than Billups did, but also isn’t looking like much of a point guard. Gordon recently told Jillian Jesk of Mouthpiecesports.com, that he would rather be a point guard than a shooting guard. Could Ben Gordon learn to run an NBA team from the point guard position, just like Billups did prior to him in Detroit?

Today, with the trade for Tyson Chandler, the Oklahoma City Thunder effectively took themselves out of the Ben Gordon sweepstakes. Unfortunately, it looks like a new team, the Detroit Pistons, who no one thought of as a potential landing spot for Gordon because of Rodney Stuckey, may be entering the Ben Gordon sweepstakes. Detroit has a ton of cap space this summer, and if they truly are interested in Ben Gordon, then the Bulls are going to be in a world of hurt, either talent wise from losing Gordon to a division rival or financially, for ponying up to keep Gordon.