After the 2004-05 season, Ben Gordon made NBA history when he became the first rookie to win the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award.
Yet Gordon’s reaction to new interim coach Jim Boylan replacing him in the starting lineup with Chris Duhon made those days of him embracing his specialty role seem like a distant memory.
“I definitely didn’t see this coming,” Gordon said.
Gordon said the right things publicly. But it’s clear a player who turned down a $50 million extension before the season views himself as a big-money starter.
“I’ve always liked to think of myself as a selfless team player,” Gordon said. “Jim said we need scoring off the bench. If that’s going to help us, I’ll do it.
“I just have to keep the same mentality, come off, be aggressive and try to score for this team. My job is still the same.”
Boylan labeled his task of breaking the news to Gordon “a very difficult conversation.”
“Ben wants to be a starter,” Boylan said. “But he understands at this point everybody needs to sacrifice. If we do that, it gives us better balance and hopefully the lulls we go through in certain stretches can be negated by having extra firepower.”
Boylan didn’t view starting Duhon and Kirk Hinrich as playing two point guards.
“I just have two guards playing,” he said. “Kirk’s a capable point guard. When Ben comes in, Kirk will obviously take the point guard duties. When it’s Kirk and ‘CDu’ out there, they’ll share the responsibilities.”
Duhon finds himself starting after making the strongest public comments about players possibly not warming to Boylan because he might be viewed as a Scott Skiles disciple.
Otherwise, players sounded open-minded to Boylan’s first day on the interim job.
“They’re two different coaches,” Gordon said of Boylan and Skiles. “They deal with guys a little bit differently.
“Jim was a lot more vocal with guys individually. He does a good job of developing a rapport with each player. Hopefully, that will help. Guys might feel more comfortable with him. I think Jim just makes it easier for guys to talk to him.”
Ben Wallace said Boylan is his own man.
“Jim has his own opinion,” he said. “Even when Scott was here and he saw something that needed to be done with the team or a play, he spoke on it and got his point across.
“We’re all fine with it. We still have to play better basketball.”
