Ben Gordon

[T]he amnesty clause (that we're having to pretend will exist here, but which almost certainly will exist in some form) will further expand the range of available talents. A lot of decent players are going to become available, not because they can't play the game, but because they can't justify their contract. A lot of the candidates are obvious and inevitable, some perhaps less so. Here's a potential list:

- Detroit: Richard Hamilton, Ben Gordon, Jason Maxiell and Charlie Villanueva - Joe Dumas's plan for the new-look Pistons appeared to be piling as many duplicate players onto a roster as possible, and hopefully overpaying them in the process. Didn't work. Hamilton and Gordon have been busy killing each other's value, value further killed by the helpful guiding hand of recently fired John Kuester, who had absolutely no idea what to do with any of them. Maxiell is coming off an absolutely terrible season in which, seemingly awash with apathy, he decided to no longer attempt rebounding and sported a PER of 9.4. And Newhouse has taken the rebounding apathy even further, sporting a lower rebounding percentage than Landry Fields last season and wasting a decent start by slowly electing to do little else but take three pointers.¹⁷ The four are owed a combined $96,380,000 over the next three seasons, are barely tradeable, and are barely helping Detroit. Pick your poison.

[...] The difference in talent between Ben Gordon and those incumbents is roughly equal to the difference between the eruption of Krakatoa and a termite farting. By putting together a lineup of Gordon/anyone/Deng/Pops/Archibald, with Freeland and Bryan-Amaning off the bench, Britain are now able to compete with any team; it matters not who the 'anyone' at two guard is. (It would be nice if it was Kelenna Azubuike, who was born in London; however, he is not eligible for a British passport. His parents were not in the country legally at the time of his birth, and Azubuike's passport application was turned down in 2007. It's a shame, because he's the missing piece.)

That lineup is still flawed; after five years of watching Ben Gordon occasionally masquerade as a point guard for my Chicago Bulls, I am left in no doubt that he isn't one. He dribbles too high, shows no obvious ability on the pick and roll, has little passing vision, and just isn't that good at getting the ball over halfcourt every time. The team ideally needs someone that can do that. (Kirk Hinrich is the obvious candidate, but he's cup-tied after having played for Team USA back in 2006. And it might also factor that he has no British heritage.)

Gordon is, however, a bloody fantastic shotmaker. And this can't be underestimated on a team that used Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Jarrett Hart as go-to guys down the stretch of their game versus Spain. With Gordon, Britain would probably have won that game. With Gordon and Deng, they definitely would. The transition of British basketball from humiliating to competitive has been very short and very sweet. It is largely because of Deng, to whom we owe a fantastic debt that we can never repay.

Sweet.

The Pistons traded [Walter] Sharpe to the Denver Nuggets to start the past offseason, along with Arron Afflalo, in order to open up cap space to unnecessarily overpay Ben Gordon. (I love Ben Gordon, but $11.6 million a year isn't getting it done. Especially off the bench. And with no other bidders.)