Ben Gordon is coming off the best offensive week of his short career, three straight games of at least 30 points.
That’s right. Time to trade him.
This is no knock on Gordon, though the long campaign to trade Eddy Curry isn’t exactly coming back to haunt the Bulls. He is suffering through a miserable season with the Knicks as team President Isiah Thomas likely is fighting off requests by coach Larry Brown to deal Curry.
Brown reportedly holds Curry responsible for the team’s lack of toughness and demanded it and Curry change now. That said, Brown recently declared Curry the team’s franchise player, supposedly nudged by Thomas and ownership because the constant demeaning of his players isn’t exactly helping their trade value.
But back to Gordon. It’s the same old story. He’s probably the most valuable Bull, but he never will be any taller. Can he displace Kirk Hinrich at point guard? Can he be a defensive presence at shooting guard?
Most executives around the NBA believe the Celtics will trade Paul Pierce, though perhaps not before the Feb. 23 deadline. The theory is that he’s their last good tradable piece and they need to make the right deal. One team executive said he believes they’re holding out for Minnesota to finally admit defeat and deal Kevin Garnett. One could make a better case that the Bulls have more assets with two No. 1 draft picks, potentially both in the lottery this June, and young players like Gordon, Hinrich and Luol Deng.
The question, though, is whether Garnett would make a team worry by rejecting going to a franchise without another star. Because then he’d find himself in a similar situation as he is with the Timberwolves, where he has to carry the team despite not being a great offensive player, particularly in the post.
So the Bulls should forget about Garnett for now and look at a realistic target: Seattle’s Ray Allen.
The Sonics are in transition, if not dislocation. They’re saying if they do not get the state to build them a new arena or renovate their existing one, they may have to move and have looked at Anaheim, San Jose and Kansas City, Mo. And you can imagine the response this is getting in Washington? Sonics Chairman Howard Schultz runs Starbucks. Yes, the guy who is charging $6 for a cup of coffee wants the state to subsidize him.
Team executives say the Sonics, having a miserable season, losing millions of dollars and almost out of the playoff race already have been active in trade talks for Flip Murray, Reggie Evans, Vitaly Potapenko and Danny Fortson. Executives say they haven’t heard mention of Allen, though at least one added a “yet.” The belief around the NBA is with Allen turning 31 this summer after just signing a long-term contract, young players like Robert Swift, Johan Petro and Luke Ridnour getting considerable playing time, the team going nowhere and the franchise in fragile financial condition (no one there wants to say that fast five times), it’s inevitable they’ll examine what they can get for Allen.
Sure, it’s a risk for a team like the Bulls to give up Gordon, who’ll turn 23 in April. But Allen is a proven, high-scoring veteran shooting guard, the kind of player the Bulls desperately need to play alongside point guard Hinrich. Allen is 6 feet 5 inches, can defend and should be able to play effectively into his mid-30s.
It seems time the Bulls end the unending youth movements. Free agency? Peja Stojakovic seems likely to re-sign with Indiana, Ben Wallace with the Pistons and Jason Terry with Dallas. So who? Al Harrington? Nene? Vladimir Radmanovic? Wait until 2007? The Sonics desperately need financial relief. Trading them Gordon, who did his best playing against Western Conference teams last week, would almost replace Allen’s scoring and could be a perimeter option along with Rashard Lewis.
So here’s a deal that could make sense for both teams. Gordon, Tim Thomas and Eric Piatkowski (the latter two with expiring contracts) and one of the Bulls’ No. 1 picks for Allen, Nick Collison, whom the Bulls always have liked, and Fortson, whose $6.6 million contract next season the Sonics have been trying to dump.
Maybe they’ll have to remove Collison from the deal if Seattle balks or throw in Andres Nocioni and juggle some figures. Gordon figures to be an excellent player in the NBA for a long time. But can the Bulls continue to wait and grow with kids? Should they?
Let’s make another deal
One interesting proposal that has been floating around and makes sense is Antonio Davis, lately of Toronto, for Dallas’ Keith Van Horn, both free agents.
The Mavericks are having a fabulous season, but the question is whether they can carry it into the playoffs. They’re perhaps the league’s deepest team, which works in the regular season. But teams shorten rotations in the playoffs and fall more into halfcourt play. It seems unlikely Dallas will retain Van Horn. The Mavs have plenty of scoring. Davis could give them a physical, halfcourt presence in a playoff series while Toronto, out of the playoffs, could get a look at Van Horn for a few months with the possibility of signing him for next season.
The Raptors have assured Davis they’d consider trying to get him to a team that will be in the playoffs.
Foreign report
The pressure continues to mount on Minnesota general manager Kevin McHale as Marko Jaric was benched, blaming his lack of production on not enough playing time, and then was inactive Saturday in a loss to the Hornets.
Not a good deal for Sam Cassell, who was traded by the Timberwolves for Jaric. Cassell has helped lead the Clippers’ surge to the top four in the West this season while Jaric was signed for $38 million.
It’s also promising to see how Americanized European players have become. Not only was Jaric busy blaming everyone but himself for his poor play, but Slovenia’s Bostjan Nachbar, who’s been on the inactive list or injured much of the Hornets’ turnaround season, had 11 points in the first half in a win over the Knicks last week and then complained about not getting shots in the second half.
Said Nachbar: “How does a guy who hits three three-pointers in the first half not get the ball in the second half? That kind of disturbs me.”
California dreamin’
Golden State assistant Mario Elie reportedly is the only one who’ll stand up to Baron Davis. Elie wouldn’t relent last week when Davis was yelling at the bench and ignoring plays. Also with the Warriors, Mickael Pietrus now starts ahead of Mike Dunleavy Jr. and his new $9 million annual contract.
Though the trading deadline is Feb. 23, the Warriors have less than a week to use a $5.3 million traded-player exception. It’s crucial if they want to trade Dunleavy because he has a difficult contract to deal without that exception. He re-signed before this season.
Dunleavy’s father, Clippers coach Mike Sr., is eager to acquire his son because, with Corey Maggette out, he thinks the Clippers could make a run deep into the playoffs with another key player.
The franchise has been past the first round of the playoffs just once, in 1976 when it was in Buffalo. The Clippers have been pushing power forward Chris Wilcox and perhaps could throw in a draft pick if they’re interested.
Artest update
Gee, how could they leave Ron Artest off the Olympic team? Artest, here Tuesday with the Kings, said of the selection process, headed up by Jerry Colangelo: “How do you say his name? Collangelina? I think (he thinks) I’m too hood for the Olympics. I’m too ghetto for the Olympics. All I know is all the stars in the NBA, they want to play with me. The Kobe Bryants, the Kevin Garnetts, the Carmelo Anthonys, they all want to play with me, so why can’t I play in the Olympics? I would like to, but they just want to hold me back.”
Double dribbles
With losses in four of their last six, could the Cavs be starting their annual second-half collapse? They’re playing .500 ball since Larry Hughes went out and his return now is uncertain with more surgery possible. . . . Antoine Walker and Antonio Davis offered assessments of their former teams last week with Davis saying the Knicks’ Thomas and Brown need to “get on the same page” about whether they want to go young or not. And Walker said of the Celtics: “I think they planned to go one direction when the season started, but . . . if you’re not winning at a level that you want to win, it forces you to do things that you don’t want to do. The pressure gets to you.” . . . Both Boston and Minnesota have fared worse since the big trade involving Wally Szczerbiak and Ricky Davis. . . . The best former Illini this season may be the Lakers’ Brian Cook, who had back-to-back games of 28 and 27 points last week and is shooting 51.7 percent.
Last shots
Kids! The Celtics were scratching their heads about rookie Gerald Green skipping practice so he could fly back to North Carolina to pick up clothes he left there in a stint in the developmental league. So much for Federal Express. Green is said to have lots of matching shoes he likes to wear off the court. … With Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming as All-Star starters, Houston coach Jeff Van Gundy said he’s pleased his philosophy that no one on a sub-.500 team should be an All-Star was ignored. “It should be a reward for winning,” Van Gundy said. … One-time Bulls executive Billy McKinney is a Minnesota broadcaster and showed up recently wearing a cape to protect himself against Garnett’s ritual pregame resin dusting of the broadcaster, an old habit of Michael Jordan’s.
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sasmith@tribune.com
