PERCEPTION: The Bulls lost a great player in Ben Gordon and will regret letting him walk to the rival Pistons, who have set themselves up for a return to contention.

REALITY: The Bulls lost a very good player in Ben Gordon and made the right decision letting him walk to the rival Pistons, who paid him as if he was a great player and have set themselves up to spend the next five years trying to trade him.

Plenty of Bulls fans are lamenting the loss of vaunted scorer Gordon to Detroit, which signed the former UConn standout to a 5-year, $50 million contract this past week. If you’re one of those people, I’d suggest considering a different perspective.

Yes, Gordon can fill up the box score in a hurry. But the thing about guys like Gordon – i.e., guys who can shoot the lights out and do little else – is that they’re a dime a dozen. And Gordon wanted a whole heck of a lot of dimes to stay with the Bulls. Take a lesson from my lowly Milwaukee Bucks, who several years ago gave a max contract to another very good player and prolific scorer in Michael Redd: Redd still scores his 20 points every night, but he’s a one-dimensional player who is merely a sidekick on a winning team, something the Bucks will never be until they can unload his disproportionally massive contract. Gordon is pretty much a carbon copy of Redd, and that kind of irony is not something the Bulls need to set themselves up for when that money could be better spent on more well-rounded players, such as the ones available next offseason in perhaps the greatest free agent class ever.

Furthermore, the Pistons also giving 5 years and $40 million to 6-foot-10 pillowcase Charlie Villanueva may prove to be the most epically moronic personnel decision made in the NBA this year. Bucks GM John Hammond, who is justifiably nuking the roster to free it from a bunch of awful contracts inked by the Larry Harris regime, unquestionably made the right choice letting the overrated Villanueva take his ball to Detroit.

What this all comes down to is the fact that the Pistons, not too long ago the closest standard to managerial excellent in the league this side of San Antonio, have completely screwed themselves.

Detroit GM Joe Dumars’ bizarre decision to blow up a perennial contender by trading team leader Chauncey Billups, cutting Rasheed Wallace and frustratingly benching cornerstone Richard Hamilton in favor of a washed-up Allen Iverson have turned the Pistons from a force into a farce. The Pistons allegedly dealt Billups for A.I.’s expiring contract to clear up cap space, which they did. But instead of waiting for the 2010 free agent bonanza that could’ve yielded LeBron James, Dwyane Wade or something reasonably close, they’ve gone and tied it all up in one guy who can do nothing but shoot and another who can barely do anything at all.

On top of all that, who’s the starting shooting guard for this team that now has a gluttony of backcourt talent? Gordon was created by God to be a sixth man, but he wants to be a starter and is sure as heck getting paid like one.

Above all else, they don’t even have a coach after canning Michael Curry following a dysfunction first season. Rick Carlisle won Coach of the Year and Dumars fired him; Larry Brown won a championship while reaching a second Finals and Dumars fired him; Flip Saunders reached the conference finals every year and Dumars fired him. Talk about having unreachable expectations.

I have no clue what’s going on in Detroit, but it’s easy to see what’s going in Chicago: a team being built the right way. So don’t fret over Gordon; the Bulls may take a small step backward in 2009, but the club’s decision not to invest superstar money in Gordon may very well help the Bulls land a real one not too far down the road.