Are Extensions in the Works for Deng and Gordon?

There’s definitely talk of contract extensions in Chicago, especially considering that the Bulls’ top two players still aren’t signed to extensions with only a month to go before the team kicks off the 2007-2008 season on October 31st. The extension deadline is up the day the Bulls start the season at New Jersey and there’s talk that Luol Deng and Ben Gordon will seek out more than the $47.5 million, five-year extension that the Bulls gave Kirk Hinrich last year on deadline day. John Paxson, the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations for the Bulls for the lat four years, discussed the extension issue recently, saying that he believes the team should get a salary discount in exchange for offering the players long-term security a year earlier than necessary.

According to press notes, Paxson had the following comments on the “business side” of the Bulls contract extensions. “If we sign these guys to an extension, and this season they go out and have some catastrophic injury, they’re still getting the money. I try to make it sound logical, but I don’t know if it comes across that way. It’s an extension; we feel like it’s the one time in a contract negotiation that, for the security they’re going to get, we should get something in return. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to talk about a great contract, because we are. But what I’ve found and learned through Kirk’s deal last year is that we still have a month, which is a long time. When that deadline starts approaching, maybe something gets done.” It seems that Bulls fans will just have to wait and see what happens come October 31st.

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