Shaquille O'Neal seriously considering a 2yr deal w/us

[D21]

Shaq wants now to join BOS
They are already better than us, would add someone to send against Howard or makes damage on offensive occasions... and ATL still have the same team.

If Paul goes to ORL, it will be hard.

[Master8492]

Shaq May Have To Drop Asking Price

It was reported earlier this week that the Hawks were the only team with active interest in free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal.

Atlanta is now on the verge of signing Josh Powell, which could cloud O'Neal's chances.

Marc Stein of ESPN.com writes that O'Neal may have to drop his asking price and demands for regular playing time or he may not land a contract for the 2010-11 season.

Read more: http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... z0uaqy5d00

with Z officially gone, Cavs need to put some sort of roster together, hopefully they will accept some sort of sign and trade Zaza deal.

That'll be awesome.

[HMFFL]

Per one Hawks official: "The Shaq situation is not a dead subject for us. We are still exploring the possibilities." Sekou Smith (Twitter)

[Eliowns]

If Shaq signs with you guys, you'll be a Boss team! Just get rid of Bibby and start Crawford!

PG: Crawford
SG: Johnson
SF: Smith
PF: Horford
C: Shaq

Bench: The rest

gawdd x]

[td00]

A few questions regarding the possiblity:

1)Does our only option regarding Shaq have to require a trade? Why would we even consider giving Cleveland or a 3rd team an asset off our team?
2)Does Charlotte or Chicago have interest in negotiating with him? They both could use him to take another step forward.
3) In the current situation, how much of an impact is the MLE when the cap is exceeded? Say Shaq is the last piece we add.....doesn't his impact at the gate offset 'some' of the taxes incurred?

I know we have 7 levels of government to get approvals from in order to bring him in, but this is so painful to try and follow knowing that you gave employee #2 one quarter of the value of your team.
It just doesn't equate unless you are going to have a 'Chicago' or 'Houston' championship run in them.

It sure doesn't appear that we are outsmarting other teams for talent, that's for sure.

[theatlfan]

A few questions regarding the possiblity:

1)Does our only option regarding Shaq have to require a trade? Why would we even consider giving Cleveland or a 3rd team an asset off our team?
2)Does Charlotte or Chicago have interest in negotiating with him? They both could use him to take another step forward.
3) In the current situation, how much of an impact is the MLE when the cap is exceeded? Say Shaq is the last piece we add.....doesn't his impact at the gate offset 'some' of the taxes incurred?

1) I can't see us dumping anyone right now (and trading someone for Shaq who's expected to receive < MLE would be dumping him). If there's a deal that makes sense while lessening our financial commitments, then yeah, we'd pull the trigger. But even with acquiring Shaq, the only player who'd be remotely redundant would be Zaza - and we'd need him to help rest Shaq since he's closing in on 40.

2) It's rare that someone would swoop in out of nowhere to grab someone like Shaq during the off-season. If other teams had some interest in him, then it should have been out there by now. It just seems like Shaq and his agent are trying to trump up some interest to get a better deal, but the other teams aren't biting while we aren't buying the bluff. At this point, it's a stare down with Shaq hoping to get more $$ and us hoping to get him @ our price. Lots of things can happen though, and I don't think Shaq is in any hurry. H3ll, he could prolly make $2 mil by NOT playing.

3) There are others who keep up with our current cap situation better than me, but I'd guess that at least $4 mil of the $5.8 mil would be taxed. Kick in another $2-3 mil when the tax $$ is spread around to the non-tax paying teams. Hence, signing Shaq would cost about $12 mil. You're correct in that some of that $$ would come back in gate receipts. There are a lot of people around ATL that would come in just to see Shaq. How many more would come next season? Would any of those who came to see Shaq continue to buy tickets after he left/retires? I dunno. You'd need a Ph.D. in Economics to have a realistic answer @ this point.

Honestly, I could see this going into Training Camp. For Shaq, he'd prolly be better off without the wear and tear that would come from TC, and things can happen (the guy someone was counting on gets hurt or simply isn't any good, etc) that would mean that someone would join the fray for his services. For us, it keeps us in the headlines all off-season since Shaq is still a marquee name. This could be a long time, so I'm going to sit back and enjoy the ride.

[parson]

1)Does our only option regarding Shaq have to require a trade? Why would we even consider giving Cleveland or a 3rd team an asset off our team?

I don't think we'd want to have both Zaza and Shaq. It'd be nice to SNT Zaza to CLE for Shaq. Same money -- we'd just upgrade at backup center.

[td00]

Zaza probably has to be kept around for insurance even if we somehow found a way for Shaq to get on this roster.
Shaq does help us in the 1/2 court. Move Al down and let Smoove learn how to value every possession in a spot rotation. I think this would be a better 3 man rotation than what we currently have. How do you feel when Smoove and Zaza are in the game at the same time? Al and Zaza doesn't do a lot for me either.

[chrbal]

1- Shaq just wants more money.

2- I can't see Charlotte going after him with Dampier (assuming he stays) Diop (albatross of a contract) and Nazr Mohammed (actually did pretty good last year and is an expiring deal). With Noah and Kurt Thomas, I can't see the Bulls bringing him in.

[D21]

1)Does our only option regarding Shaq have to require a trade? Why would we even consider giving Cleveland or a 3rd team an asset off our team?

"Only" ? no.
We can get him without sendin a player like that :
- our MLE, so up to 5.765M, but it will cost some tax if it's more than 3.5M (room we have under the tax if we had two other minimum contract players)
- our BAE if he wants to signs here for up to 2.08M
- our TPE from Childress, which more than 3.6M. It would be a sign-&-trade but for the TPE so we don't send any player. Shaq has to agree on signing for 3.6M max.

A sign-&-trade gives opportunities for ATL to send a player and his salary, so even if Shaq signs for 5M or more, they would not pay any tax.
But they would loose a player.
It gives Shaq the possibility to sign for more than the BAE, more than TPE, and even more than the MLE, so he really wants this option, more than ATL, and even CLE.

I'd guess that at least $4 mil of the $5.8 mil would be taxed

Less than that :
we are at 65,097,034, with 3 roster spot to fill.
Add 2 minimum contracts, it makes 66,805,812.
Add the full MLE and it makes 72,570,812 so "only" 2,263,812 would be tax.

But sure ASG won't pay 5.765M + tax for Shaq

[Beware]

I am in no way a Hawks fan but I am the biggest Shaq fan and I can't believe the dissection from one tweet that means nothing. They are still considering it, didn't you all know it? I think the liklihood of Shaq being a hawk is like 15 percent now.

[theatlfan]

Thanx D21. I knew someone here had a more accurate answer than what I threw out there.

? though: do you keep up with all the team's cap situations or just ours? Basically, I'm wondering what the tax payouts would (presumably) be if we stayed under the tax. I guessed about $2 mil we'd be missing out on if we went over the tax to pay Shaq, but it was a guess. Do you happen to have a more accurate number there too?

[D21]

theatlfan,

we can't known exactly because the tax is set at this end of regular season, so if teams make trades, it changes.
But if ATL is over the tax, there would certianly be a additionnal hit of 2M or more, and if they are under, they are sure to get something instead of paying, so it can make a huge difference.

If Shaq is signed for 5M, it can makes 1.5M over the tax, almost 71.8M.
Add 1.5M of tax and a automatic hit of 2M, you are at 75.3M from your pocket.

If you stay under the tax, up to 70.3M, by signing Shaq for only 3.5M (it's even possible with the TPE, to keep the full MLE for later if owners were suddenly changing way to manage this team), you get 1/30 of the tax paid by team over the threshold.
At this moment, I see at least 75M of luxury tax, so 2.5M for each team not paying any tax.
ASG would in this case spend only 70.3 - 2.5 = 67.8M

It's nearly 7.5M difference, just by giving 1.5M to Shaq (5M instead of 3.5M).
Even if there is no 2M hit for being over the tax, it still makes 5.5M difference.

[theatlfan]

Thanx again, D21.

So, I guess there's the answer I've been looking.
[removed since it's wrong... See post from D21 below]

With Horford an FA next year and the raises already in the contracts of many of our players, anybody taking bets as to whether Ja Crawford will be a Hawk after next season?

[D21]

We will be at 66.8M with two more minimum contracts.

We give Shaq a 3.5M contract ( by signing him with a part of the MLE or by doing a sign-&-trade sending the TPE from Childress ), we stays under 70.3M, and get at least 2.5M from tax so only spend 67.8M in the end, so adding Shaq costs 3.5M and we still get 2.5M from 1/30 tax share.

We give Shaq a 5M contract, we have to pay nearly 75.3M (at 1M less or more because of automatic hit, and all the unknow part of salaries likely/unlikely bonus) , so Shaq costs 8.5M

We give Shaq the full MLE at 5.765M, we have to pay nearly 76.83M, so Shaq costs 10.03M

[theatlfan]

Thanx again D21

[td00]

Sure sounds like to me that it is either going to be Marvin or JC1 that gets moved if we are going to add any new players to our roster after Powell:

Al/Smoove/#2/Marvin/Bibby
Teague/Zaza/JC1/JC2/Evans
Collins/Powell

I know for a fact that roster isn't going to take you anywhere near a 2nd round advancement.

I expect one more minimum player to be added, and we have ourselves the 2010-11 Hawks.

[HMFFL]

If you say so Dwight.

Dwight Howard on whether O’Neal would be a good fit for the Hawks: “I don’t know. I like their lineup now. I know a lot of people get mad and say they’re not big on the inside, but they’re a big team. They’ve got big guards. They’ve got big forwards. They’ve got a flying forward [Smith]. So it doesn’t really matter about having a seven-footer. Link

[evildallas]

The thing that bothers me most is that while the ASG and the front office are smart not to S&T and pay Shaq 2 yrs/16M he wants, they were stupid to pay Joe Johnson 6 yr/124M. If they were consistently smart or stupid it would be easier to understand. What is really accomplished when you alternate smart and dumb maneuvers? Nothing good. If you are going to spend then spend to complete the roster. If you are going to think budget first, they should have let Joe walk to preserve the flexibility needed to fix the roster.

Given the Joe Johnson move, we logically should still be in the market for Shaq, but we are not. The O'Neal subject is dead. The ownership shot their financial wad on their own free agent and are now pinching pennies until the next crisis (Al Horford).

[Magic24]

We will be at 66.8M with two more minimum contracts.

We give Shaq a 3.5M contract ( by signing him with a part of the MLE or by doing a sign-&-trade sending the TPE from Childress ), we stays under 70.3M, and get at least 2.5M from tax so only spend 67.8M in the end, so adding Shaq costs 3.5M and we still get 2.5M from 1/30 tax share.

We give Shaq a 5M contract, we have to pay nearly 75.3M (at 1M less or more because of automatic hit, and all the unknow part of salaries likely/unlikely bonus) , so Shaq costs 8.5M

We give Shaq the full MLE at 5.765M, we have to pay nearly 76.83M, so Shaq costs 10.03M

Isn't the tax divided between teams under the tax? So it wouldn't be 1/30? Instead it would be 1/x, with x being the number of teams below the tax.

If it still stays at 1/30, do you know where the rest of the money goes to?

As of right now, their are 8 teams over the tax. So if everything stayed the same it would be about 3 million to each team under the tax(using 1/22). Of those teams, I can see the Bobcats and Blazers cutting salary to stay under.

http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm
Utah is another team that might be close to it with the Raja Bell signing.