Qualifying Offer Gordon’s Best Bet
Monday, August 4th, 2008Today, Marty Burns of SI.com did a piece on Ben Gordon’s situation titled Sitting Bull: Gordon stuck in limbo. The article covers the basics that we all know, of Gordon’s options being Qualifying offer, taking the Bulls slightly lowball offer, a sign and trade, or Europe. The interesting part of the article is some quotes from an Eastern Conference GM.
“He’s stuck,” an Eastern Conference general manager said. “Nobody [except Memphis] has any cap room. And I don’t think he wants to go to Europe.”
“His best deal might be to take the qualifying offer,” the GM said. “He could still re-sign with the Bulls next year. He’d just have more leverage.”
It is very likely that Ben Gordon is highly regarded around the league. He is the main focus of all 29 other teams whenever they play the Bulls. It sounds like this particular general manager thinks Gordon is just a victim of the NBA’s broken restricted free agency system. Teams are reluctant to offer a player an offer sheet as it locks up their money for 7 days.
It is amazing that the Bulls are playing such hardball with Gordon given what one of his likely landing spots is if he leaves the Bulls next year. The two most likely landing spots for Ben Gordon are Miami and Portland. Gordon could be the final piece to the start of a dynasty in either place. Gordon would be a great fit next to either Dwyane Wade and Brandon Roy, both bigger guards who can play the point guard position. The Bulls should especially be afraid of Gordon bolting for Miami as the Bulls would have to go through the Ben Gordon, Dwyane Wade, Michael Beasley trio every year in their quest for a championship.
Ben Gordon has little to lose taking the qualifying offer. He will only lose about $1.2 million next year if he takes the qualifying offer instead of the Bulls offer, which would be peanuts if he got the big extension he is looking for. If Carlos Boozer doesn’t opt out next summer, Gordon will be the top free agent on the market, so a big offer will likely come his way.
The Bulls need to start taking the Gordon situation more seriously, because if they continue to play hardball with him and end up disrespecting him, they will probably lose him to a conference rival next summer. Losing Gordon to Miami would likely make it so the Bulls never win a championship while the Gordon, Wade, Beasley Heat are still together.
