Great Britain coach, Chris Finch, has given Ben Gordon an August 19th ultimatum to resolve his contract situation with the Bulls and join the Great Britain squad in Belgium for the second part of Great Britain’s training camp in preparation for the European Championship Qualifying Tournament. Finch is understanding of Gordon’s situation as Gordon was open and honest about how he was going to handle this since the beginning.
Finch said: “We understand Ben’s position and he has been consistent and up front with us about it all year.
“But when our training camp moves to Belgium later this month, we need him with us if he is going to play.
“That would give him nearly two weeks of practice before we open our group games against Israel and a player of his quality could easily integrate into our team in that time.” ((http://www.basketball247.co.uk/news/archives/00000145.shtml))
It is beginning to look more and more likely that Gordon’s contract situation will not be resolved by then, and he will end up not playing for Great Britain this summer. Gordon is having difficulty getting the Bulls to go into the luxury tax this year. ((http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=9692)) At this point, it seems that Gordon will likely end up on the Bulls qualifying offer.
It is unfortunate that the Bulls are blocking this great opportunity for Gordon and his Bulls teammate, Luol Deng, to play together in a structured, competitive situation during the summer. Given the Bulls chemistry woes last season, you would imagine that the Bulls would be doing everything they could to try to get a deal done with Gordon, so him and Deng, the Bulls current top two players, could go play together for a month and a half before training camp starts. Unfortunately, Bulls ownership does not seem committed to winning at this juncture.
