RealGM

The Hawks landed Maurice Evans (2.5M) and Randolph Morris (1M). However staying within the MLE they could have gone other routes. The most apparent to me is Kwame Brown (4m) and Kareem Rush (1M). I'm not considering Matt Barnes who signed before Childress inked in Greece although he probably would be the best SF candidate. I realize we have room to sign another player, but for now just consider those 2 combinations. Which would have been the best route?

I really like Evans but Morris is a huge ? right now but he can turn out to be usefull but Woody won't play him most likely.As of right now Rush and Brown of course but it's to early to tell . If Morris is decent I pick him and Evans.

lol Kareem got replaced by his little brother.I really liked Brandon Rush in this draft though,I wish we had a chance to get him somehow.

I went with the deal we made because I'm hoping that Al can play a few more minutes a night this season and I think that Zaza has a better chance of giving us productive minutes in the front court again than any of our existing backcourt players if Rush were forced to be the prime backup on the wing.

I'm not so sure Morris brings much to the table but we can always hope.

I mean it would have taken the whole MLE to get Kwame where it only took like 2.5 million to get Evans. I know you don't want people to take that into account but thats sort of the whole ball of wax right there... is Kwame worth all that extra money. Rush and Morris are both minimum salary guys- no real reason to care either way there.

On a dollar-basis, I'll go with Rand 'n Mo, particularly if it creates enough room for one more bench player.

~lw3

We still have money left to add some more depth where as we would have used the full MLE on Brown and Rush.

Devin Brown, Bonzi Wells, Gordan Giricek, Fransisco Elson, Brian Skinner, and Jamaal Magloire are all still left.

I intentionally went with a big and a SG in each case, it just flips which position has the greater dollar investment in it. Kwame and Kareem would cost a little more and you can certainly factor that in in the evaluation.

I would have say Kareem Rush and Kwame Brown, but I have some doubts on Kwame and how Woody would have been able to get the best from him.
And since it would have push ATL over the limit where we can sign Smith for max without going into luxury zone, there is no way ASG would have done that, even if they don't want to sign Smith for max.

Now, if Smith sign for less than 11.5M in his first year, we will be able to use the remaining part of the MLE, and I am OK with Evans, Morris and another 3M guy (did not check but I think we will also need one more minimum guy).

D21- I don't really get why you keep coming back to the idea that the Hawks need to keep room to sign Smith to a max contract. I think its rather clear that they would make him take the QO long before they would pay him the max.

It was in case of a sign-&-trade where the other team would agree to sign Smith to the max.

Meanwhile, since there's BYC rules, a sign-&-trade would certainly bring back less money than the total of Smith at max+filler.
But I thought of that because of the Evans contract perfectly matching the only room (including minimum contract to fill the roster) before tax threshold in case of Smith at max. Not a sure thing, but a strange coincidence

I'll go with Mo and Randolph because we can still add more players to the bench.