Question: What do you think of Ben Gordon's signing as a free agent with the Detroit Pistons?

Answer: Actually, we made a decision a year ago not to commit long term to Ben. We tried, and he turned it down. Then, near the end, [now GM] Gar Forman and John [Paxson] decided it probably wasn't a good idea to make a long-term decision. We wanted to see what other options might develop. So we withdrew the offer [six years, $54 million] we had on the table. Ben ultimately said he would take it, but it was too late.

Now, fast forward to the end of the year, we have [John] Salmons and we have a hell of a three-guard rotation with [Kirk] Hinrich and Derrick [Rose]. Ben wasn't going to get a whole lot of playing time. [It] was going to be diminished. So Ben really no longer fit. Ben's a terrific player. But Ben needs minutes. He would not have been happy with the minutes he was going to get.

Q: What about letting Gordon go and getting nothing in return given he was the third overall pick in the 2004 draft?

A: You can't just look at a player by himself. You've got to look at what his departure enables you to do in other ways. You do have to have [salary] cap flexibility in this league. It's not like baseball where, if you have the money, you can do whatever you want. The cap really constrains you. So you're constantly looking at your roster to see maybe two or three years out.

Q: The Bulls will have some $25 million in salary-cap room projected to spend on the star-studded 2010 free-agent class. After spending $60 million

on free agent Ben Wallace with little to show for it, are you leery of courting another big-money player?

A: Yes. But the only way you can avoid making a mistake is not to make a decision. Even Jerry West has made mistakes, and he's probably the best in the business. Even [Red] Auerbach made mistakes. Was Ben Wallace a mistake? Probably. Because what we didn't think about is Ben needs to play alongside somebody who can score a lot of points. But I don't think it's about Ben Wallace that makes us be careful. It's the thought that when you make a mistake, you own that mistake. So we've got to be careful.

Q: There's a perception the Bulls move slowly when it comes to big-name trades. The perception is you missed on Pau Gasol, on Kevin Garnett. What's your response?

A: I don't think we move too slowly. Gasol, we didn't move slowly, we said, 'No.' We were prepared to give [Memphis] players. What they wanted to do was to basically dump stuff on us and we'd be immobilized; we wouldn't have been able to improve our team. Gasol made sense for the Lakers because he is their third-best player, probably. He would have been, at that time, our best player. It would have been a wrong role for him. John and Gar decided they didn't want Gasol under those circumstances, where he would have been the last piece and we would have been immobilized because of the [salary] cap.

Q: How do you balance the momentum the team had from the playoff series with Boston with the league projections of revenue and salary cap again decreasing while trying to position the team to take the next step?

A: It's a real juggling act. We're not betting on 2010. But we want to be in a position to do something significant in 2010. We want to be better in this season than we were the prior year. But we want to retain cap flexibility. We will be better because Luol [Deng] will be back. We'll have Salmons and [Brad] Miller for the whole season. And we'll have the draft choices [James Johnson and Taj Gibson]. So we should be better.

It was a great [playoff] series. These guys played their hearts out. But as I told them the day after we lost, I said all summer long people are going to tell you how great it was, how much they enjoyed the series. But remember one thing: We still lost. I didn't want them to feel that this was a great

accomplishment. This was just a step.

Q: Would you ever exceed the luxury-tax threshold?

A: I don't mind [paying] the tax if it's an intelligent expenditure. I don't care what the tax would be; if we had a guy who was going to put us over the top and put us in the Finals, I'd pay the tax. I wouldn't hesitate.

Q: Does it take three All-Stars to contend for a championship? MJ was the last Bulls All-Star in 1998.

A: We have Derrick [Rose]. He clearly shows the potential to be an All-Star. A healthy Luol is going to become an All-Star. Boston showed three stars helps you a great deal. The Bulls championships, we really had two stars. Maybe we had three stars in Michael Jordan himself. But it's still a team game. If you have the right role players and play the game properly, you can win. But with three All-Stars, it makes it a lot easier.

Q: Without beating the lottery odds of less than 2 percent and landing Rose, would your three-year building plans have been set back greatly after the 33-win season (2007-08)?

A: Yeah. But I knew right along we were going to get Derrick. John [Paxson] can tell you. John said several months before the draft, 'We really need a point guard.' I said: 'We'll win the lottery and take Derrick Rose.' Honest to God, I said that. I was acting silly, and it worked out.

People say, 'You should go to Las Vegas.' I say no because I've already used up all my luck. I walked into Michael Jordan. He had already been drafted, nobody knew what he was. You don't succeed in this world without a certain amount of luck. If you're successful and you think you're successful because you're so frickin' smart, then you're heading for a fall. You have to have luck, and you have to have other people helping you out.

Q: Was buying the Bulls in 1985 your best investment?

A: If you take into account the Bulls also created the United Center -- you take the whole package -- yeah, probably.

Q: Did the Bulls create the United Center? Or did Michael Jordan create the United Center?

A: Michael Jordan was a Bull. Michael's often told me, if he had been drafted by Portland, he wouldn't have been anything near what he was. I don't think that's true. I think he would have been Michael even in Portland. But he's always disagreed with me on that. But the fact is -- whether it was Michael, the Bulls , whatever -- if you take into account the appreciation of the value of the franchise, and that it has been profitable, and we own half the United Center, yeah, probably.

Q: You bought the Sox in 1981, the same year Tribune Co. bought the Cubs. Would you have considered buying the Cubs had that opportunity come along first?

A: I closed on the White Sox in January or February, and I think the Cubs sale was in June. That's a tough question because my son Michael made me into a White Sox fan. I had pretty much turned off of baseball after the Dodgers left [Brooklyn in 1957]. I used to watch a lot of Cubs games because they were on Ch. 9 and the White Sox games were on 44 or 32 and you had to play around with your antenna [to get a picture]. My son Michael came home one day and announced he was a White Sox fan, so we started going to White Sox games.

Had the opportunity come up to buy the Cubs, would I? I don't know. Probably, because just the idea of being able to own a baseball team would have gotten me to it. But it worked out great that I could buy the team my son and I were rooting for.

Q: At 73, how much longer do you want to be the chairman?

A: Two of my very best friends have died within two days of each other. So it's a very unpredictable world. I don't have any plans to stop. But who knows? I've just always been competitive. I love sports. I grew up in Brooklyn, where sports were the most important thing in our lives. I was 10 when the league started. I used to go to Madison Square Garden to see all the Knicks games, college Basketball games.

Q: Do you like being the most successful and recognizable owner in town?

A: First of all, Rocky [Wirtz] is now the No. 1 owner. He's a rock star. But you have to understand how I operate my businesses. I'm a prototypical CEO. That is, I really have only three things to think about: public relations, long-range planning, and most important, identifying the jobs that have to be performed and hiring the right people for those jobs. Then make sure they talk to each other. If you look at the Bulls and the White Sox and how long they've worked here, I hire great people and let them do their jobs. It makes my job very easy. I just have to talk to them and have them keep me informed. You would be amazed of how much goes on that I don't know about. I tell them, 'If I don't need to know about something, then don't tell me.'

Q: How close are the Bulls to a championship?

A: I feel the real standard whether you had a good year is: Did you make the conference finals? You get into the final four, you had a good year. If you didn't, you have some more work to do. We haven't been back to the final four for a while [1998]. So we haven't done what I would have hoped we would have done.

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