Jerry Reinsdorf Admits Not Letting Gordon Sign

May 25th, 2009 by Andrew Wamboldt

Jerry Reinsdorf, in a radio interview with Chuck Swirsky, admitted his tomfoolery of not letting Ben Gordon sign the $54 million over 6 year deal last year, which Gordon wanted to sign.

“He was prepared to sign last year at the end, but after he turned down our offer, we thought about it and thought about it and decided it was in our best interest just to go one year with Ben,” Reinsdorf said. “We informed him of that, at which time his agent came back and said, ‘We’ll take your prior offer.’ We said it was too late. It’s off the table.

“We’ll have decisions to make at the draft. It depends on who we take, whether we trade our picks or we trade other players. Where we’re going with Ben can’t be decided until after July 1.”

This is one of the most inane actions that have been seen in recent NBA history. The Bulls won this round of negotiations, they had Gordon cracked, but they then proceeded in shooting themselves in the foot by not letting him sign the bargain bin deal.

Ben Gordon has been the best Bull since Michael Jordan, yet he was still willing to sign a contract of less value than that of Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Tyson Chandler, and Ben Wallace, all much lesser players. The actions of Jerry Reinsdorf in this situation are that of a dimwit.

Now the Bulls risk leading their leading scorer of the past four years. Oklahoma City, Detroit, and Memphis can all give him lucrative deals that could make him immediately make Gordon jump ship. Teams such as Miami and Cleveland could offer Gordon a 1 year deal, with the promise that they will re-sign him for big money next summer, as both teams will have capspace in the 2010 offseason.

The way that Reinsdorf talked about the draft, it seems like if the Bulls decide to re-sign Gordon, they will probably trade their picks.

It seems as though the basketball minds in the organization are on board with re-signing Gordon. But will it matter what they want in the end? In the end the baseball mind will be making the decisions, and it is clear that the baseball mind’s goal is to make as much money as possible. He has been pretty good at achieving that goal, as the Bulls’ have been the most profitable team over the past 10 years. At assembling a championship contender? Not so good. Maybe he should let the basketball minds do the thinking.