RealGM

Killbuckner - you understand the cap better than anyone on this board, so I'm directing this question mainly to you:

Wouldn't it be smarter to keep Bibby until his contract runs out?

That way we get significantly under the cap next offseason and can offer large extensions to Joe Johnson and Al Horford, plus have some space left over to pursue the big guy and/or shooter we really need to complete the team. Plus, we would avoid the inevitable situation with Joe and Al that we are in with the 2 Joshes this summer. Is all that correct?

EDIT: I'd love to hear from everybody on this, not just KB, he was just the first person I thought of...

I was going to wait for killbuckner first, but had to chime in that their is too much uncertainty in this question because the Joshes have yet to be resolved.

While you have Bibby 14.9M and Zaza 4M expiring you have a max cap hold for Marvin Williams. Which means (assuming Joshes are matched) that even if you renounce Bibby and Zaza, we will likely have no cap room without renouncing all 3. If we did that the exact amount of space still wouldn't be known since we don't know how much the Joshes will or will not be paid and we don't know what the actual cap number will be.

the best scenerio would be to re-negotiate his contract. he really should only be making 8-10 mil a year (leaning towards 8) that way you can account for marvin's and zaza's extentions. at that point you would have to start looking at trades. at that point i'm expecting al to be close to being a max player. chill or marvin would have to go.

Did you use Zaza and extension in the same sentence?

wow didnt know bibby was making 14.9..

Dallas summed it up pretty well. I think that it was always a pipedream for Speedy to be off the cap for this offseason but I would say its rather likely that he will be off for next offseason. So here is the cocktail napkin math I have for the Hawks cap as of next offseason.

Johnson 15M
Smith 15M
Childress 6.5M
Horford 4M
Acie 2M

So thats 42.5 Million. Put in another 2.5 millon or so of roster space capholds which would be at 45. Maybe Claxton is still there which would add another 5 million but lets ignore that for now.

Marvin will count as a max contract, but as long as you sign him first you reclaim the rest of that caproom. He isn't going to sign for a low amount in the beginning of FA though- he just has no reason to. He isn't going to be #1 on anyone's list, but he could be plan C for a lot of teams. Lets say the hawks sign him for 8 million a year starting out. That would but them at 53 million in total salaries which would probably give them about 10 million left in caproom as my best guess. Of course that would involve renouncing Bibby completely, signing only expiring or minimum FA's, and Speedy could potentially mess that up.

I think if the team wants to make a big spash in FA they should be looking at what choices they can make now to do that better. I'd certainly look to trade Marvin- he will have the Hawks over a barrel in negotiations if they need him to sign before they can sign anyone else. I'd say they should be looking at S&T's of Josh Smith, but honestly I don't know that the hawks can get anyone as good as Smith in FA. (This is faulty logic btw- theoretically you could get fair trade value for Smith now PLUS whatever you could sign in FA, I just know that Free agents haven't really flocked to atlanta so its a riskier strategy)

I don't really care about caproom because you usually have to overpay someone to go on your team and that player ends up being a bad contract. It's very rare that players improve significantly after cashing in on a new team...Joe,Boozer,and Arenas are the only 3 that come to mind.

2010 is probably the year you want to set yourself up for capspace(although Joe will also be a FA that year)if possible. I don't know if we could make a run at one of the big time free agents....but maybe it would make more since to sign Roger Mason Jr. and Kwame Brown to 2 year deals each than matching an offersheet to Chil for the full MLE over 5 years just for the slight possibility that you could still have the chance to make a run at someone in 2 years...although I believe there is a much better chance of getting a good player for teams dumping good players for expirings just for the chance to have caproom in 2010.

I don't ignore the cap room because it means you might get a good free agent. If they aren't doing well by the trading deadline this year, I think they have to explore the option of dealing Mike Bibby for some good players.