In this rookie class gordon is one of the top players. right now i believe it's gordon, okafur, howard, and livingston. picking gordon was fine although livingston i think as mentioned may be the best player coming out of the draft when we look back years from now. in any case, i just think it's silly to bash gordon after he's been on a tear in the last month.
The only thing i can say is that one on one doesn't really assess anything. Just cause you can beat someone in ONe on One doesn't mean your a good player with 4 opther people on your team and running against the other 5. That's where a team player and someone who plays his position right becomes better. One on One is for street ballers not the NBA
The little I saw of him against us in LA convinced me. At first I thought it was all hype but his uncanny court savvy and efficiency wowed me. And he is 6-7..... On the other hand, is Telfair [sp?] a burst now or it is too early to tell? I have only seen very little of him and from the little I saw he had nothing on Earl Boykins if you get my drift. I also saw one of his high school or maybe all star games and I was not too sold/impressed.
yeah, I completly agree. Sam still walks around town (or, at least, the last time I saw him) with kind of a limp because of the surgeries and stuff. But he said he never really got his fair shake after one of the surgeries. He just got barried at the end of the bench and was pretty much a practice body. He really resented LA for that. But I could not agree with you more. My point was just that, IMO, the draft is somewhat of a crap shoot. You really never know what you definatly getting. You think ANYONE would have passed on MJ if they'd have known?? (well maybe the Rox stick with Akeem back then, in hindsight, I loved Akeem and Hakkem so I'd have stuck with him). John Stockon was a 2nd rounder. He is a hall of famer if we hate him or not. But it's just so hard to know what your getting outside of say like a Lebron or Tim Duncan, espically with all these high schoolers coming. Sometimes you get a Lebron, or KG, Kobe, ect. Sometimes you get Kwame Brown (whose not bad, but not #1 overall good). You just never really know till you look back, and really, that's not all that fair, but it's part of the NBA.
Telfair probably won't turn out to be much, but his presence in Trail Blazer games in late November/early December was pretty telling. It was obvious that someone had gotten to Mo Cheeks and told him to forcefeed ST minutes. He went from DNP's to being the second guy off the bench in no time at all, and it wasn't because he was playing well. Nash really has something for him, and I don't get it. Neither does Cheeks, apparently.
I like Gordon, but Duhon's impact goes beyond the numbers I think. The Bulls were 0-9 with Duhon on the bench, and Gordon started three of those games. Since then Duhon and Hinrich have started in the backcourt and the Bulls are 11-9 in that period.
holy hell! there were 10 rounds??......that's NFLesque ....ok, my mistake on the stockten thing......maybe it was Hornaceck......I know Cuttino was
Duhon is a very good floor general and a decent defender, but he can't make a shot even if his life depends on it. That's the reason why he dropped to the second round in the draft, and that's the reason why he'll eventually lose his starting position. The only reason that he's starting for the Bulls is because they don't have any starter-caliber SG. So they are forced to play Hinrich out of position. If Chris Duhon can ever pull an Eric Snow and develop a shot, he would be a very good PG in this league. However, after watching him for years in Duke, I don't think that he'll ever do that.
Thanks for the discussion. I think that the recent turnaround of the Bulls has more to do with moving Duhon to the starting lineup. Right now Gordon is just the 6th man off the bench. How can justify that with a #4 pick? For christ's sake, it's not like he is coming off the bench for the Suns or the Spurs, he is .... a Bulls.
He's coming off the bench because Skiles is the coach. Skiles style is very old school and Ben Gordon is definitely a product of today's NBA. Even though Gordon comes off the bench he's been playing more than Duhon and the articles that are out there have given called him and Hinrich the reason for the Bulls recent success.
I can think of two main things Gordon has done that justifies him as a #3 pick: his shooting percentages and the timeliness of his shots. After starting off terribly the first couple of weeks, Gordon has upped his overall percentages to better then respectable. For the season he is now shooting .449, and .468 on three-pointers. He also is averaging .844 on free throws. Having watched almost every Bulls game this season, I can attest to how many clutch shots he has made, whether at the end of games, to stop an opponent's run, or to help further increase a Bulls run. In the 11 games the Bulls won he has shot .534, with a 3PT% of .588 while averaging 17.3 points in only 26.1 minutes.
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/ben_gordon/season_splits.html BTW, here's the page where the stats are from
Actually wasn't it Mo Cheeks who played a big role in them drafting Telfair? That's what I remember reading. He apparently loved Telfair's instincts and court vision as a point guard.
Just want to chip in another thought on Gordon: Gordon is definitely not a so-called "street-baller". He doesn't do fancy dribblings. His shooting is actually almost text-book like--very good form and very quick release. That's why I said if he were a few inches taller he would be exactly like Ray Allen. Unfortunately, though, he is only 6'1". Keep in mind this is a guy who has been in a great college program for three years. He's very well polished.
perhaps, but he penetrates more than Allen ever did - and he was more composed down the stretch. He'd be the prototypical SG if he were three inches taller. I'm a big Ben Gordon fan.
He does penetrate alot, and his ability to finish has really helped his FG%. Assuming Chicago resigns both Chandler and Curry, which is looking alot more likely, then I still think the Bulls long-term may need some additional pieces. 1) A bigger SG(James Posey type maybe) 2) A younger version of Antonio Davis to rotate with Chandler/Curry when the real AD is gone(Othella Harrington may end up being a stopgap)
