The Chicago Bulls left a bitter taste in Ben Gordon’s mouth after only offering him a $55 million deal, not the $59 million deal that was widely reported throughout the contract negotiations.

“A lot of times, things that are reported to the media aren’t correct,” said Gordon, speaking to Mouthpiece Sports‘ Mitch Robinson. “I’m sitting there looking like, wow, was I offered that?”

The hardest part of the process for Gordon was being misunderstood, and people not understanding how things went down.

“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see,” Gordon warned.

Respect, not money was the main roadblock in reaching a contract agreement.

“A lot of my decisions are made off of principle and respect,” said Gordon.

Gordon likely felt disrespected by the Bulls decreasing his offer from last year while substantially increasing Deng’s offer.

In addition to that, after stating all summer long that the luxury tax was the only thing blocking a larger contract offer from the Bulls to Gordon, it turns out the Bulls weren’t even offering Gordon the full amount they could while remaining under the luxury tax.

“It did leave a bit of a bitter taste,” Gordon said, “but at the same time, it’s a business. That’s something you got to understand quickly once you get into the NBA, it’s a business. It’s a cutthroat business.”

Despite all of this, Ben Gordon and his representation have remained professional throughout the process. Gordon’s representation, Raymond Brothers, stated that they are open to negotiations with the Bulls again next summer.

One can only hope that the Bulls learned from their mistakes and don’t repeat the same mistakes next summer, that they made this summer.

Yesterday, Ben Gordon agreed to sign the qualifying offer, worth $6.4 million, with the Chicago Bulls. The situation is not the one that anyone wanted, and could end badly, more so on the Bulls side of things than Gordon’s side. Here are my thoughts on the entire qualifying offer.

Gordon doesn’t need the Bulls.

Throughout this process, various NBA analysts have said that Gordon would eventually come to the realization that him and the Bulls need each other, and take the Bulls $58 million, 6 year contract offer. The Bulls may need Gordon, but he doesn’t need them. The notion that the Bulls offense is the only one that can fit Gordon’s style is absolutely preposterous, there is nothing about an offense that forces Gordon to consistently take off balance shots that is perfectly suited for him. An offense perfectly suited for Gordon would allow him to run the offense from the top of the key, not pin him in the corner.

Rather, somewhere with a dominant shooting guard is probably the best place for Gordon, say in Miami with Dwyane Wade. A player like Dwyane Wade allows Gordon to be the point guard while not being the primary ball handler. He would be able to create his own offense some of the time while feed off of a player like Wade’s offense at other times.

The notion that a small shooting guard is so difficult to find a good role for on a team is a little reaching. I take it no one was thinking this when Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars led the Pistons to two straight championships? Or when Devin Harris and Jason Terry were the starting backcourt during the Maverick’s run to the finals in 2006. Size in the backcourt is overrated. The reason the Bulls failed defensively last year wasn’t because of their small backcourt, it was because Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, and Drew Gooden were awful on defense. The foundation to a strong defense comes from your interior defense. The ability to put guys on the perimeter on lockdown is only a bonus, not a necessary ingredient to a good defense.

Gordon is not a microwave.

Stop comparing Gordon to Vinnie Johnson and saying he should come off the bench because he’s like Vinnie Johnson. Those Pistons teams started their best two players in the backcourt. If we were to follow suit, Gordon would be one of our starters. Besides that, Gordon is a much better player than Johnson. Just run a quick look at their stats. Gordon’s career scoring average is higher than Johnson’s best season. Gordon is a very efficient scorer while Johnson was a very inefficient scorer. There is a reason why Ben Gordon is a starter in the NBA and Vinnie Johnson isn’t. Ben Gordon is simply a much better basketball player than Johnson.

Reinsdorf is the greedy one, not Gordon.

Let’s be honest, the Bulls’ $58 million offer was on the lower side of fair, and one with very little chance that Gordon would take. You could come up with a number of logical reasons why Gordon wouldn’t take this contract offer, such as he didn’t want to commit himself, when the money is so low, long term to a team who keeps forcing him to come off the bench, or that he didn’t want to get bungled up in this crowded backcourt.

What is Reinsdorf’s excuse for not making a higher offer? The NBA doesn’t have a hard salary cap that the Bulls were pushing against, so the Bulls could easily have upped Gordon’s offer a little bit. Why should I, as a fan, care about the luxury tax? Are you going to tell me that the most profitable team in the NBA over the past 10 years can’t pay $1-2 million in tax dollars to retain one of their two best players long term? It’s a shame that we don’t have an owner like Mark Cuban, who truly loves the team he puts on the floor.

Bulls were ridiculous in these negotiations.

Did the Bulls really expect Gordon to sign a contract less than what they offered last year? In any business, that is a good way to lose an employee, it is no different in the NBA. Did it really make sense for Gordon, who had a better season than Deng, to have his contract offer decreased from $10 million per a year last year, to $9.8 million this year, while Deng had his contract offer increased from $10 million to $11.8 million this year, potentially $13.3 million per a year after incentives? No, it doesn’t, and in doing this, the Bulls created a situation in which there was a very low chance of Gordon signing.

The Bulls got even more ridiculous when they pulled their $58 million offer before Wednesday. There was no reason, whatsoever, for Gordon to accept the Bulls offer before the deadline, even if he decided that he was going to take the Bulls offer. It was low, and Gordon did the right thing in waiting out until the deadline. If Gordon was planning on taking the Bulls deal at the last minute, the Bulls will have made a massive blunder.

This is exactly what you want out of your top scorer.

This is exactly what should be expected out of a team’s top scorer, their go to guy, and clutch extraordinaire. I don’t want our go to guy questioning whether he should be taking a shot right before he takes it. It is much better for a go to scorer to be confident in their actions. Gordon is confident in his ability, and believes he will be able to play himself into a better contract next year. It’s nice to be reassured that the guy who takes so many of our clutch shots (and the only one on our team who has had success during the clutch) has so much confidence in himself.

The Bulls should play Gordon.

So much has been made about the Bulls needing to clear the way for Thabo Sefolosha and Tyrus Thomas, so they can get playing time, so we can see what we have in them this year. Why doesn’t the same hold true for Gordon? No player has been more misused during the Skiles/Boylan era than Ben Gordon. Am I the only one who thinks that finding out whether we have an allstar/superstar in Ben Gordon is more important than finding out whether we have a good role player in Thabo Sefolosha? The Bulls should be learning from their mistake of trading Tyson Chandler, not repeating it. We don’t want to trade Gordon only to find out that he is a much better player than he was here, just because we were misusing him. This year, on the qualifying offer, is a better time to find out what we truly have in Gordon than never at all.

I think Vinny will play Gordon.

Vinny has to make a good impression on the league this year. Successfully managing the Gordon situation will go along way in establishing Vinny’s reputation around the league. First, he will be able to gain credibility among players as a guy who won’t screw them over. Second, playing Gordon a lot will probably be conducive to more winning. Nothing will help establish Vinny’s reputation around the league more than winning a lot of games.

The Bulls better play Gordon.

You don’t pay a guy $6.4 million not to play him. This isn’t a guy like Larry Hughes, where he can no longer contribute positively on a basketball court, and you’re simply stuck with them. The Bulls had a choice of whether they wanted to have Gordon back this year. If the Bulls didn’t want Gordon back, they could have just never extended the qualifying offer to him this summer, and saved themselves $6.4 million.

This is the second straight summer that the Bulls haven’t been able to get anything done with Ben Gordon. Next summer could be the third, and next year it might be three strikes and your out for the Bulls, if they fail to reach an agreement with Gordon.

The Chicago Bulls released the following press release at 11 PM CT regarding the Ben Gordon situation.

October 1, 2008 – The Chicago Bulls today announced that guard Ben Gordon agreed to accept the one-year qualifying offer that had been tendered to him by the team.

Gordon will thus be under contract with the Bulls until the end of the 2008.09 season, at which time he will become an unrestricted free-agent.

The 6-3, 200-pound Gordon has appeared in 316 games, including 128 starting assignments, in four seasons with the Bulls. During that time, he has averaged 18.0 ppg, 2.9 rpg and 2.9 apg, while shooting .432 from the field and .416 from three-point range.

Last season in 72 games, he led the team in scoring for the third consecutive season, posting 18.6 ppg and shot a career-high .908 percent (third in NBA) from the free throw line. Gordon was selected by the Bulls in the first round (third overall) in the 2004 NBA Draft.

Ben Gordon will be the best player in NBA history ever to take the qualifying offer. The Bulls now risk losing Gordon as an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Victor Bellan is reporting that Ben Gordon has verbally agreed with the Bulls to sign the qualifying offer. Bellan expects now that the Bulls have cost certainty, that they may add a veteran big man to the roster in the coming weeks, possibly former Bull, Michael Ruffin.

Gordon confirmed to K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune Sunday, that he would show up for media day and the start of training camp.

This puts closure on a negotiation process that included Gordon reportedly getting offers from two Russian teams and a Greek team (CSKA Moscow shot down the Gordon rumor), flirtations from Dwyane Wade, and Ben Gordon saying that he wants to be a New York Knick.

This is the second straight summer that the Bulls and Gordon have failed to agree to a long-term deal. Gordon’s qualifying offer is worth $6.4 million, which is $1.4 million less than the first year deal on the 6 year $59 million contract that the Bulls were reportedly offering.

The Bulls will now be at risk of losing Gordon for nothing next summer, as Gordon becomes an unrestricted free agent.. They could try to trade him this season, but the qualifying offer comes with a no trade clause, and Gordon has no incentive to agree to any trades. The Miami Heat, who tried to trade for Gordon this summer and the Oklahoma Thunder seem to be two teams that could make a run at Gordon next summer.

Update: Multiple reports have come out stating that the Bulls are in negotiations with Ben Gordon on his contract extension. It looks like a long-term extension might get done after all. Up until this point the Bulls have not held any real negotiations, the two sides were just too far apart for any negotiations to take place.

This means that one of the sides is wavering. I would venture to guess that it is the Bulls side that is wavering. They likely saw the negative fan reaction that came out over having Ben Gordon on the qualifying offer and are beginning to take this more seriously as to avoid a repeat of last year. It is also possible that the Bulls are liking what they are seeing out of guys like Tyrus Thomas and Drew Gooden, and can now justify going into the luxury tax because it will be for a team that they see can be a winner.

Typically, negotiations don’t move until a deadline is set and approaching. So it is no surprise that no real negotiations have taken place up until this point. If the Bulls offer Ben Gordon Monta Ellis money, I really think that will be enough to sign him. The Bulls then will have the rest of the season to find a way to get under the luxury tax.

We will continue to update you as more news comes along.