RealGM

This should be a very good team!

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Johnson/
Smith/Evans
Horford/Willams
ZsaZsa/Morris

Ten players, 3 maybe 4 roster spots open.
Team needs:

2 back up wings SG/SF
A real starting center who can score in the post a a little or got some range on his J
A back up PF/C

Richardson and Jones floating out there.

Anyone know who's being looked at?

First the roster should be like this:

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Johnson/Evans
Williams/????
Smith/Horford/Morris
Horford/Zaza/Morris

I hope we can sign West to a 2 year deal or something along those lines to fill the Sg/SF back-up void with Evans. Also hopeful Solomon.

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Johnson/Evans/West
Williams/West/Smith
Smith/Horford/Solomon
Horford/Zaza/Morris

That is how the rotation should look like.

I bet that J-Rich makes the team. Right now the main thing I'm hoping for is Speedy getting healthy, but that's probably a pipe dream.

Williams will start, the guys over at Hawksquawk are saying that we signed Othello Hunter, the Hawks supposedly have interest in Fransisco Elson but it was reported that he has a verbal agreement with Milwaukee but Mo Evans had the same agreement with GS so maybe the Hawks can steal him from the Bucks.

So potentially, it will be:

PG-Bibby/Law/Claxton
SG-Johnson/Evans
SF-Williams
PF-Smith/Jones/(Elson/Hunter)
C-Horford/Pachulia/Morris

And then you have Thomas Gardner, Luke Jackson, Mario West, and Jeremy Richardson competing to get on the roster to backup SG/SF.

Even though Horford isn't a true center, he is a beast there, and since we got Smith back, it shows that Horford is staying at center.

sign Francisco Elson or Jannero Pargo and i'm good

CWell wrote:sign Francisco Elson or Jannero Pargo and i'm good

I thought Elson agreed to terms with Milwaukee earlier this week. Pargo is likely out of the price range and would probably be looking for a less crowded situation.

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Joe/Evans
Marvin/
Josh/Jones
Horford/ZaZa/Morris

Weak points:
3rd PG has shaky health (probably no signing, just counting on Joe's flexibility and leave a roster spot open just in case).
No real backup SF (probably sign someone from Summer League like Jeremy Richardson).
Jones and Morris have very little court time between them (probably ignore the problem hoping they play well).
Lack of bulk on the front line (probably ignore the issue hoping that Morris's attention lessens the concern).

If it's just filling in gaps, I still see Jeremy Richardson as the likely backup 3. Othello Hunter was the other guy I though was promising from Summer League and he can play either 3 or 4 and as a rookie is less expensive. I believe they'll leave one roster spot open to sign temporary help and be able to react to a position need.

Personally, I'd like to get a more of a sure thing as a backup big. I can easily see a scenario where Woodson is unwilling to play Morris and Jones much leaving us very thin up front. Wouldn't we be better off with Dikembe Mutombo back there? Theo Ratliff would be the other possibility. Neither could give many minutes, but at least the minutes they give would be as a defensive presence. The other route I still wouldn't mind would be a deal with OKC to turn Zaza into Damien Wilkins and Johan Petro. I prefer Petro to Zaza as a backup and Damien Wilkins could be the backup SF.

(removed... double post)

Great to see Othello get rewarded after his performance this summer. He sounds really excited to get a chance on this squad. I guess the Mario West and Jeremy Richardson FA threads can get cranked up now. My guess is they'll keep one but not both.

In digging for SF-PFs I forgot Austin Croshere is still out there and appears to have a pulse, and wouldn't mind him as a backup, especially if Landry's not realistic and Horry's not healthy enough. Dorrell Wright would be SF only, but may be good insurance in case Marvin gets hurt or dealt w/o an adequate replacement starter. Smoove can slide over, sure, but I imagine we'd want to minimize that necessity.

~lw3

The first thing is to know how Smith's contract is build. If it's not front loaded or flat, he would start at about 10M$ with a 0.8M increase every year.
It would mean that the total salaries are 62.4M for Bibby, Joe, Josh, Speedy, Marvin, Al, Zaza, Acie and Solomon. Add 2.3M for Evans and 0.8M for Morris, and it makes 65.5M for 11 players.
One more at minimum salary (0.8M) and it leaves almost 5M before the tax threshold, meaning we can use the all remaining part (3M) of the MLE to sign another player, even if Smith first year is at about 12M.

And to be sure to play at a better level, it would good to sign a 3M guy, so hope it's not front loaded.

[quote="LHughes/JSmooth"]First the roster should be like this:

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Johnson/Evans
Williams/????
Smith/Horford/Morris
Horford/Zaza/Morris

quote]

If they are looking to build on last year

Bibby/Law/Claxton
Johnson/
Marvin/Evans
Smith/Hunter
Horford/Zsa Zsa/Morris

11 players

I'm thinking Evans is more the defensive stopper energy guy than a natural scoring instant offense guy off the bench.

Who is going to score off the bench?

Team needs some instant "O" off the bench. Too bad ben Gordon is so expensive.

Wonder if Sund will bring in any of "his guys".

Hunter was like his draft pick.

D21 wrote:The first thing is to know how Smith's contract is build. If it's not front loaded or flat, he would start at about 10M$ with a 0.8M increase every year.
It would mean that the total salaries are 62.4M for Bibby, Joe, Josh, Speedy, Marvin, Al, Zaza, Acie and Solomon. Add 2.3M for Evans and 0.8M for Morris, and it makes 65.5M for 11 players.
One more at minimum salary (0.8M) and it leaves almost 5M before the tax threshold, meaning we can use the all remaining part (3M) of the MLE to sign another player, even if Smith first year is at about 12M.

And to be sure to play at a better level, it would good to sign a 3M guy, so hope it's not front loaded.

Dorrell Wright toback-up Marvin and fully replace Chill?

Al- Zaza- Morris
smith- Jones- Hunter?
marv- Wright
JJ- evans- sAlim or rio
Bibby- Law- Speedy

not bad...

Currently we clearly need a backup SF and perhaps another big, I don't know after signing Hunter if we are still searching for one.

For SF I would definately consider Gelabale, he is the best FA available right now. I think we can sign him cheap and can do all we would require, defend, shot 3's. Another option could be Dorrel Wright but he is restricted and probably Miami will match and an intriguing prospect would be Kasib Powell. This guy really can play and showed some flashes last year and on summer league. I doubt if Miami signs Dorrell he would also sign Kasib.

For the big some options we could consider is Fazekas, Solo Jones, Magloire, Elson and Harrison. My take would be Fazekas or Magloire depens of what the coach wants. Currently we have 3 centers so I think probably is better to sign a backup PF than another Center so I would go with Fazekas a PF with size and nice shot, he complements Josh very well.

And if you want a shooter forget of Richardson or Luke Jackson. The guy that showed can shot was Thomas Gardner he was deadly from downtown and in limited minutes he outplayed both Richardson and Jackson.

So the lineup would be:

Bibby/Law/Claxton
JJ/Evans/Gardner
Marvin/Gelabale
Smith/Fazekas/Hunter
Horford/Zaza/Morris

About Bennet he only played well one game but he did so well playing the point that he deserves to be followed, he came wild and won the match alone. Probably Richardson also so I say sign and send them to the NBDL.

Another option I would consider and is not such a strange thing if you consider the situation is Shaun Livingston. The guy can play, has a lot of talent and plays PG one of our weakest position. We coul sign him also cheap as nobody is offering him a contract and we have to take into account that next year Bibby ends contract, Claxton probably will not play much and and Law is unproven. Imagine we sign him 3 years 9M$ and he manages to stay healthy 60 games, he could very well average 12ppg, 5rpg, 6apg if given the minutes. I say is low risk at that money and the reward can be HUGE!! Next year we would not have to worry about our starting PG and will have 15M$ of cap space. I say PLEASE SIGN HIM!

I would probably pick up Livingston over Galebale, despite of the risk factor but he turned down a garanteed offer from the clips. May be looking for more money that we can offer.
Now that we have Smoothe, I will go with Theo if we are still looking at adding a big.

Al/ Zaza/ Theo
Smoothe/ jones/ Hunter
Marv/ Livingston/ Hunter
JJ/ Evans/ livingston
Bibby/ Law/ Speedy

FCNATL85 wrote:I would probably pick up Livingston over Galebale, despite of the risk factor but he turned down a garanteed offer from the clips. May be looking for more money that we can offer.
Now that we have Smoothe, I will go with Theo if we are still looking at adding a big.

Al/ Zaza/ Theo
Smoothe/ jones/ Hunter
Marv/ Livingston/ Hunter
JJ/ Evans/ livingston
Bibby/ Law/ Speedy

Theo played only like 15 games last year and zero the year before, we need someone that can stay healthy and provide help. We would be lucky if he can play more than 25 games.

if we keep Jones we will be fine. Then we could go after either Wells or Finley straight or JR Smith in a S&T involving Speedy/ Salim / 2nd 09 for Carter / JR

Al/ Zaza/ Morris
Smoothe/ Jones/ Hunter
Marv/ JR/ Hunter
JJ/ Evans/ JR
Bibby/ Law/ Carter

We may have to give more for JR...

Has getting JR SMith been brought up before? Cuz that would be a great addition? Is there any rumors of us going after someone else for our bench??

Sign Nick Fazekas. He's young, cheap and he put up very good numbers in limited minutes last year.

gurpilo wrote:... Next year we would not have to worry about our starting PG and will have 15M$ of cap space. I say PLEASE SIGN HIM!

Keep in mind that it depends on the other contracts and that we would need to renounce the exceptions to get real cap space.

With Joe, Speedy, Al and Acie at 26.7M, add Josh at about 10M, maybe Marvin at 10M (if he can start to hit 3s, he can be worth it), and you are at 46.7M with salary cap certainly at 61.5M.

But if you sign a star beginning at 13M, you have 7 players, and only 2M left for a 8th player, then only minimum contract to fill the roster.
So is it better to do that, or to re-sign or sig-&-trade Bibby, Zaza ? because in that case, as they are ATL free agents, we can keep our exceptions, so you can keep both for less, or do trade (before February) or sign-&-trade them, and still use the MLE, LLE before using minimum contracts.

Knowing ATL is not the kind of organization which looks interesting for big F.A., especially after the Childress and Smith episode, I would prefer to keep them and/or use them for trade instead of letting their contracts expire.

Had posted this on the Carl Landry thread. I was saying I wouldn't mind having him at 3 mil a year, but only if we couldn't get a defensive center with some size. Plus:

Rod700 wrote:I wouldn't mind bringing back Mutumbo for one year for some limited minutes of the bench to fill that need for a big defensive center. Talk on realgm boards said he wouldn't return to Houston for the minimum. Maybe we could offer part of what we have left in the MLE. He'd be a temporary fix until we get more cap room next year.