If you've listened to Ben Gordon speak at all during the past few months, it shouldn't be a surprise that he's agreed to a deal with the Pistons.

You could hear in his voice and see in his actions that he wanted a change of scenery. The minute the Bulls pulled their deal off the table last summer is the minute Gordon started looking elsewhere.

He felt disrespected by Jerry Reinsdorf, John Paxson & Co. He never felt comfortable playing for new coach Vinny Del Negro and although he never stated this publicly, I always got the feeling that he didn't like playing second fiddle to anyone. He never considered himself to be a complementary player; he wanted to be treated (and paid) as the team's superstar and that simply wasn't going to happen in Chicago, not with Luol Deng locked up in a multiyear deal and certainly not with Derrick Rose becoming the cornerstone of the franchise.

All the Bulls fans who wanted to see Gordon leave town got their wish, but now that he's apparently gone how are you going to replace his 20 points per game? Who is going to take all the clutch shots in the fourth quarter now?

Deng hasn't made it through a full season in over two years and he has yet to prove that he can be counted on down the stretch of big games. Kirk Hinrich is an option, and played well during the playoffs, but do you trust that he can be a guard who leads you to an NBA title? He's had a reduced role ever since Rose hit town and averaged just 10 points during an injury-plagued 2009 season. Speaking of Rose, there's no doubt he's only going to get better, but he's still just 20 years old. Is he going to be strong enough over the next couple of seasons to put the Bulls on his back and carry them the way Gordon has, at times, during his tenure with the team?

No, Gordon's shot selection wasn't the greatest. He made some strange decisions with the ball and he definitely wasn't going to win any defensive awards any time soon, but he gave the Bulls the type of stability that only clutch shooters can. He was good for 20 points almost every single night and wasn't afraid to take the last shot when the clock was running out. The Bulls don't have a player on their roster right now who can do that, with the possible exception -- in a year or two -- of Rose.

There's no telling how the future is going to play out. The Bulls may still try to swing a deal for Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire, which would give them exactly the type of one-two punch with Rose that every team desires. They may get lucky and land another player in a trade -- like they did with John Salmons -- which would give them another option on a roster that doesn't have a lot of financial flexibility at the moment. James Johnson or Taj Gibson may provide a spark and give the team the low-post depth it desperately needs. Somehow over the next 12 months, the Bulls may clear enough space to lure Dwyane Wade back to his hometown.

In the meantime, while the team ponders its next move, one thing becomes clearer than everything else at the moment: The Bulls aren't as good as they were this morning when Gordon was still a member of the team.

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