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 NBA draft,Bulls Select Gordon, to Get Deng in Trade
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Bulls Select Gordon, to Get Deng in Trade
By JASON STRAIT
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 24, 2004; 9:39 PM
DEERFIELD, Ill. - The Chicago Bulls added a pair of college standouts in the NBA draft on Thursday, taking Ben Gordon of Connecticut and agreeing to a trade for Duke's Luol Deng.
The Bulls took Gordon with the No. 3 selection, then got Deng at No. 7 in a trade agreement with the Phoenix Suns.
"We need to start building this team up again. We're still a very young basketball team," Bulls general manager John Paxson said. "We've addressed some needs. We needed scoring and shooting out of this draft.
"With Ben Gordon, we get both. With Luol Deng, we get both."
Gordon led the Huskies to a national championship, averaging a team-leading 18.5 points this season. The junior guard averaged 21.2 points during six NCAA tournament games.
The 6-3 guard was selected one pick after Huskies teammate Emeka Okafor, who went second to the expansion Charlotte Bobcats.
Deng was taken at No. 7 by the Phoenix Suns, who made the pick for the Bulls. Chicago traded a future first round selection, a second round pick and cash for Phoenix's first-round choice.
Gordon joins a young Bulls backcourt that includes Kirk Hinrich, Chicago's first round draft selection last year. Hinrich was one of the few bright spots on last season's team, averaging 12 points and nearly seven assists.
The selection of Gordon could mean the end of Jamal Crawford's tenure with the Bulls. Crawford, the eighth pick of the draft in 2000, is a restricted free agent.
Crawford led the team in scoring at 17.3 points a game, though his defense and shot selection were often questioned.
This is the third straight year the Bulls have used their top pick on a guard. Chicago took Jay Williams of Duke two years ago, then lost him in the offseason last year to a motorcycle accident.
Gordon's stock rose leading up to the draft after several impressive workouts. He was projected as a point guard in the NBA, but could slide over to shooting guard for the Bulls.
He ended his career at Connecticut with 1,795 points and 437 assists, and his 246 3-pointers are a school record. He was a career 42.3 shooter from 3-point range.
In Deng, the Bulls added much-needed depth at the small forward position. The 6-8 Deng left college after averaging 15.1 points and 6.9 rebounds in his only season at Duke.
© 2004 The Associated Press
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Re: NBA draft,Bulls Select Gordon, to Get Deng in Trade (Re: Deng)
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Deng ascends to NBA stage
TOM MENDEL/THE CHRONICLE
Luol Deng has been praised for his maturity, and today, he will follow Corey Maggette as the second Duke player to make the jump to the NBA after one season.
by Mike Van Pelt
June 24, 2004
NEW YORK -- For Luol Deng, whose journey from the war-torn Sudan to the boisterous confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium has been recounted numerous times, today will mark the next stop and the culmination of years of hard work and perseverance.
The 19-year-old star has been projected by most NBA scouts and analysts to hear his name called for either the Chicago Bulls at the third pick or for the fifth pick, which belonged to the Washington Wizards. However, the Wizards dealt that pick to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Antawn Jamison late last night, adding yet another twist to what has become a difficult draft to predict.
The soon-to-be millionaire would not say for sure where he thinks he'll end up, but it appeared he had an inkling.
PETER GEBHARD/THE CHRONICLE
Luol Deng is a versatile forward who can shoot from the outside, drive to the basket and play in the post.
"That's the thing about being an athlete, you always get a feeling it's just your competitive nature," Deng said. "After a workout you think you did so great that your going to end up at that place, but you never really know."
Deng held formal workouts for the Bulls, Wizards and the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, as well as an open workout for scouts from other teams. Charlotte--which some believed would be a good fit for Deng because he could remain in North Carolina--will likely take the remaining player between the consensus top-two picks Emeka Okafor or Dwight Howard. They acquired that pick earlier in the week from the Clippers, who seem committed to selecting a point guard, rather than Deng, with the fourth pick.
The 6-foot-8 small forward has impressed scouts with his versatility, something he showed often throughout his sole year as a Blue Devil. In preparation for the draft, Deng was asked to showcase that wide range of skills.
"With Chicago I did a lot of ballhandling. With the Wizards I did a lot of shooting. Every team did a different thing, so I can't really say exactly what was my best workout," he said.
The graduate of Blair Academy in New Jersey has spent the last few weeks training with workout guru Tim Grover in Chicago alongside many of the best in this year's class, including Blue Devil signee Shaun Livingston.
Adjusting to the competition in the NBA game and the length of the season figure to be among Deng's biggest challenges. Compared with high school prospects, Deng believes that coming from a system like Duke, where a player is forced to play alongside and against other great players, will help ease that adjustment.
Deng considers his strengths to be strong fundamentals and an outstanding basketball IQ, but he has yet to master any aspect of the game, leaving room for development. Throughout this past season the Duke coaches marveled at how eager Deng was to absorb their advice and criticism in order to improve himself.
"It's just a learning process," Deng said after emerging from a slump in early February. "I'm not going to come in knowing everything. I'm going to learn from it. I just love learning, and when you learn it's just amazing what you can add to your game."
It is that type of attitude that teams are looking for in the age of "drafting on potential." Deng's willingness to listen to his coaches and teammates contributed to his increased production over the course of the ACC schedule and the NCAA tournament, culminating by being named Most Outstanding Player of the Atlanta regional.
The harshest criticism the third-team All-ACC performer has received leading up to the draft has been about his lack of athleticism in comparison to many of the NBA's rising stars at the small forward position. Again, however, scouts do not appear to be overly concerned because what he lacks in quickness he accounts for in other aspects of his game.
Possibly most impressive about Deng is the apparent maturity with which he carries himself.
"The road that I took to be here helped me mature a lot. In a way I think I'm a lot more mature than my age," he said.
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski echoed that sentiment, confident in his former player's future.
"It is obvious that he is more ready than a lot of the kids in the draft," Krzyzewski said. "He has a great upside and he is a great kid."
Although Duke fans felt betrayed by the news he would not return, Deng's decision to leave such a storied program was not an easy one and was something he had to address repeatedly yesterday at the NBA draft's media session.
"It was pretty hard because it was not like I didn't like the school or the team, because [Duke] was a great place for me," he said. "Those things made the decision a lot harder, that's why it took a while."
However, despite all the wavering and the false verbal commitment that he would return following the Final Four loss to Connecticut, Deng knew what he wanted to do. He felt that his game was ready for the next level and that he was going to take his coach's advice and follow his instincts.
"Coach K is a great coach and we all know that, but he's also a great teacher," Deng said. "[Krzyzewski] said if I'm going to do this I had to follow my heart, that I can't do it for anyone else."
David Stern will step to the podium at some point tonight and announce the next destination in a long journey for Deng, one he could not have made without a short yet incredibly worthwhile stop in Durham, both for himself and Blue Devil fans.
"It's one of the great programs in the country, and when you come from a great program, you leave with something great," he said. "That's what Duke's done for me. I've learned a lot from them this year."
(عدل بواسطة Deng on 06-25-2004, 03:16 AM)
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Deng
خالد الأيوبي
Muhib
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست