Official Josh Smith Matched Thread

[tontoz]

"They said, 'here it is. And if you think you're worth more than what we offered go out there and see what's going on. If you find something better we'll just try and match it,' " Smith said of the initial discussion his camp had with Sund and his team.

That is lame. It is pretty sad that he had to go to Memphis to get a fair offer.

[JoshB914]

Man it's gonna be nice to see this thread go away.

[NWO4Life]

I am of the opinion that the Hawks got a steal of a deal and the team will be better because of it.
There are some questions about Josh around the league about his character issues. I think people forget his age at times. (23) What a steal for the Hawks! To often you see players get paid based on what they have done in the past. ie Big Ben Wallace and have zero upside. The tone on the board seems rather tepid. I think this a AWESOME and believe that this signing only made JSmooves agent work a bit for his money. As for a trade possibilities there is no one in the league that is available with his kind of talent with his contract. Somebody would have to over pay big time to get him now.

Congratulations to Josh and the Hawks!

[tbhawksfan]

I am of the opinion that the Hawks got a steal of a deal and the team will be better because of it.
There are some questions about Josh around the league about his character issues. I think people forget his age at times. (23) What a steal for the Hawks! To often you see players get paid based on what they have done in the past. ie Big Ben Wallace and have zero upside. The tone on the board seems rather tepid. I think this a AWESOME and believe that this signing only made JSmooves agent work a bit for his money. As for a trade possibilities there is no one in the league that is available with his kind of talent with his contract. Somebody would have to over pay big time to get him now.

Congratulations to Josh and the Hawks!

Totally agree. We keep Smoove, one of the up-coming stars of the league and can look forward to a good cap situation in regards to builing a contender.

Nice work and very happy to have Smoove locked up for five years.

[evildallas]

What I don't get is that most media pieces assume this isn't as lucrative as the other RFA deals. It really depends how it is structured and the achievability of the incentives that are in the other deals.

Josh Smith is getting 5yr/58M.

If Luol Deng's contract is the standard 10% raises each year then he'll make less in the first five years (approx 55.5-56.2M). At the 4 year mark it is most certainly higher for Josh as well (in case of ETO). The Hawks paid fair market value they just didn't do the negotiating or control the deal structure.

The incentives can tip the scale to the other deals, but my understanding is they aren't easy to accomplish incentives. If they are deemed too easy they count against the cap up front.

[FCNATL85]

NIce job Sund on this one. Josh is locked up for 5 y at a moderate rate considering his actual talent and potential. Let's hope that marv pans out this year.
Al- Zaza- Morris
Smoothe- Jones- Hunter?
Marv- richardson- Hunter?
JJ- Evans- mario
Bibby-Law- Speedy

This team may actually be better than last year but big improvments were made by rivals in the East especially Philly.

[Master8492]

After what Sunds and the ASG treated their RFA in Childress and Josh Smith... I wonder what's going on in Marvin's Mind?

[betta1]

After what Sunds and the ASG treated their RFA in Childress and Josh Smith... I wonder what's going on in Marvin's Mind?

Hopefully that he still has a lot to prove.

[atl_fan]

Does anyone think the ASG will offer Marvin the same deal they offered Smoove before last season? (5 yr 45 mil)

Would he accept that deal? Or is he even worth it?

[evildallas]

I really think the 45M mark is too low for Marvin (more on the math next paragraph). If they are serious about signing him they need to start over 50M given Josh's deal and the deal signed by Bogut. They might be able to lock him up at 5yr/55M range, but it might be wishful thinking that he'd be even a dollar less than Josh.

Offering the 9M average would be a wasted effort in my opinion if for no other reason than his qualifying offer is 7.355M. Using that as a starting salary with 10% raises is 45M over 5 years. So in essence if they offer him that, he could make the same money year 1 by taking the qualifying offer and then have freedom to negotiate with anyone in 2010. It would be a no brainer for Marvin to accept the qualifying offer.

It's a roll of the dice either way. If you sign him to an extension you are banking on him working hard enough to earn it. If you don't you're banking on him not being able to get an offer on the RFA market that you are uncomfortable with. Reading the interview with Marvin by Sekou makes me believe that he is worth the investment (I'd at least be getting a closer look if I was the GM). The question really has to be long term budget and whether they believe these are the right pieces. Come the summer of 2010, you have to expect that Joe Johnson will command the max. In 2011, Al Horford if he progresses as expected will be in the max discussion as well.

[HMFFL]

Hoopshype is showing the following:

Josh Smith

$10,000,000

$10,800,000

$11,600,000

$12,400,000

$13,200,000

[raleigh]

Hoopshype is crap. We'll just have to wait for an update from the ESPN trade machine. (Unless someone like GAD from the Bucks' board gives us an early hint...).

[Hawks]

Hopefully it is just like JJ contract in that there is no player option.

Here is SAS on Smoove and the Hawks. It should be the first video to pop up.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=atl

[killbuckner]

I would be REALLY surprised if there wasn't a player option for that last season. The Grizzlies had to know that the contract was likely to be matched, they really wouldn't have had any reason not to give him a player option.

[tisbee]

Looks like Hawk fans can thank whoever injured Darko. Shortly after Darko was hurt the Grizz made their offer. Otherwise from the tone of the qoutes baseline_jay posted,it looks like Smith was going to take the 1 yr and then get out of town.