Hawks can't acquire 2 max players...

[Jamaaliver]

unless one of our two Power Forwards gets moved. Even with all the salary cap space we'll have, it won't be enough.

Forward-center Al Horford and John Jenkins, the Hawks’ first-round pick in last month’s draft, are the only players with guaranteed money on the books for the 2013-14 season. It won’t be quite that easy, though, as cap holds for point guard Jeff Teague and power forward Josh Smith will eat up about $22 million of Atlanta’s cap space, theoretically eliminating the possibility of that Paul/Howard double-whammy; those two stars are eligible for a combined first-year maximum salary of about $39.2 million, meaning the Hawks will have to trim their cap number to about $20 million to sign both into cap space.
For the Hawks to add both stars will require some work because Horford’s 2013-14 salary and Smith’s cap hold total about $28 million.

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2012/07/11/nba-free-agency-roundup/#more-19824

Not exactly breaking news. And it appears from statements Ferry has made that he currently favors keeping Josh. Though I predict that will change during the season.

I still think Josh will have trouble putting up impressive numbers like he did back in Feb/March if teams are focusing solely on shutting him down. This should open up our shooters to put up big numbers. But I predict Josh gets moved by the trade deadline in a move for young assets or as the primary piece in a young upcoming star. (Harden? Gay?)

[parson]

Summertime, when everything gets printed and REprinted.....

We've been over this: we CAN sign 2 max FAs but only if they (and Smith) agree to take less than the absolute maximum, like the MIA 3 did, so there is precedent. If you think about it, about the only way for any future team to have a big 3 will be for the 3 to agree on salary that way.

And I still don't see trading Josh Smith for a non-big.

[ZA ZA ZA]

We can trade Horford on draft night for Shabazz Mohammad to clear up space

[benikaye]

doesnt matter anyways, chance of getting them were next to none. cp3 is maybe realistic. but dwight wont leave the lakers....he just seems so excited there for some reason...and i heard he bought a 20m house or something next to kobe

[Jamaaliver]

doesnt matter anyways, chance of getting them were next to none. cp3 is maybe realistic. but dwight wont leave the lakers....he just seems so excited there for some reason...and i heard he bought a 20m house or something next to kobe

Agree it was a long shot for both.

But I had heard that Dwight was still reluctant to sign in LA long term. He didn't want to be in Shaq's shadow or share the limelight with Kobe. That's why he didn't agree to the trade to LAL previously.

It makes sense that the Lakers could provide everything he's looking for both on and off the court. Yet he hasn't signed off on an extension. I still think NJ, Dallas or another team has a real shot to pull him away from LA.

[Jamaaliver]

Summertime, when everything gets printed and REprinted.....

We've been over this: we CAN sign 2 max FAs but only if they (and Smith) agree to take less than the absolute maximum, like the MIA 3 did, so there is precedent. If you think about it, about the only way for any future team to have a big 3 will be for the 3 to agree on salary that way.

And I still don't see trading Josh Smith for a non-big.

I can't see 3 top players taking a pay cut to play for the Hawks.

I can't even see Josh taking a pay-cut after the fiasco that was his last run in Free Agency.

[Jamaaliver]

We can trade Horford on draft night for Shabazz Mohammad to clear up space

What really burns is that we could have traded Josh Smith this past season to NJ for the draft rights to Damion Lillard.

THAT kid is a star in the making. (And the likely ROY.)

That move alone would have given us a fresh start and some cap relief.

[MaceCase]

doesnt matter anyways, chance of getting them were next to none. cp3 is maybe realistic. but dwight wont leave the lakers....he just seems so excited there for some reason...and i heard he bought a 20m house or something next to kobe

Agree it was a long shot for both.

But I had heard that Dwight was still reluctant to sign in LA long term. He didn't want to be in Shaq's shadow or share the limelight with Kobe. That's why he didn't agree to the trade to LAL previously.

It makes sense that the Lakers could provide everything he's looking for both on and off the court. Yet he hasn't signed off on an extension. I still think NJ, Dallas or another team has a real shot to pull him away from LA.

He wanted Brooklyn as his top priority is why and it's been gone over ad nauseum that nobody is signing an extension (not CP3, not Josh, not Dwight) because they'd get a lot more money next off season. That and there is no way he can make it to Brooklyn next season because teams that far over the cap can't do sign and trades for no one.

We can trade Horford on draft night for Shabazz Mohammad to clear up space

What really burns is that we could have traded Josh Smith this past season to NJ for the draft rights to Damion Lillard.

THAT kid is a star in the making. (And the likely ROY.)

That move alone would have given us a fresh start and some cap relief.

I don't even get this, the Nets didn't own their own pick, they gave it up to Portland for Wallace. That is unless you are implying that

1) the Nets had an interest in Josh

2) it would have been feasible to dump him for a lotto pick that could have been anywhere but the top 3 in the middle of a season where he was leading the team to a pretty healthy record and playoff berth.

If you meant moving Josh to Portland then I still don't see how that burns because Portland would have zero interest in a guy like Josh when they already have Aldridge and Batum manning their forward positions.



As an aside, Sund already failed in attempt to move Josh for a top lotto pick so I find it just as unlikely that Al would be able to be moved for a top lotto pick on draft night.

[Jamaaliver]

We can trade Horford on draft night for Shabazz Mohammad to clear up space

What really burns is that we could have traded Josh Smith this past season to NJ for the draft rights to Damion Lillard.

THAT kid is a star in the making. (And the likely ROY.)

That move alone would have given us a fresh start and some cap relief.

I don't even get this, the Nets didn't own their own pick, they gave it up to Portland for Wallace. That is unless you are implying that

1) the Nets had an interest in Josh

2) it would have been feasible to dump him for a lotto pick that could have been anywhere but the top 3 in the middle of a season where he was leading the team to a pretty healthy record and playoff berth.

As an aside, Sund already failed in attempt to move Josh for a top lotto pick so I find it just as unlikely that Al would be able to be moved for a top lotto pick on draft night.

I'm saying: we're all in agreement that Josh Smith > Gerald Wallace. NJ got desperate and traded their top pick (top 3 protected) for an over the hill former All Star (Wallace) because they needed something, anything to convince Deron and Dwight that they could acquire talent to build a contender.

If NJ was willing to trade their pick for 3 months of Gerald Wallace, I'm sure they would have been more than willing to trade that same pick instead for 15 months of Josh Smith. A younger, better, more productive player.
NJ was shopping their pick pretty hard. A proactive GM would have contacted them and made a deal. Be it JJ, Smoove or otherwise.

[MaceCase]

Can you remind me of the team's record on March 16th, 2012? I asked this already but I guess I'll do it again, would it have made any amount of sense to ship off JJ or SMoove in the midst of a playoff run for the 6th pick in the draft.......with the intention of selecting Lillard of all people?

The only "proactive" GM that would have done that to his 5th seeded team 45 games into the season would have been one in possession of the same crystal ball that you seem to have. Why stop there though? A proactive GM would of shipped Bibby and Jamal to the Clippers for Baron Davis and the 1st overall pick and selected Kyrie Irving, THAT right there really gets my goat.

[Jamaaliver]

Can you remind me of the team's record on March 16th, 2012? I asked this already but I guess I'll do it again, would it have made any amount of sense to ship off JJ or SMoove in the midst of a playoff run for the 6th pick in the draft.......with the intention of selecting Lillard of all people?

The Gerald Wallace trade was finalized March 15th. At that point NJ had one of 4 worst records in the East at 15-29 and had virtually no shot at the playoffs, thus guaranteeing it would have been a lottery pick. (NJ would have had to go 17-1 down the stretch to beat out Philly for the final playoff spot.)

ATL on this same date was 25-19 and had the 6th best record in the East. We were still behind Orl and even Boston was % points ahead of us.

We were a nowhere team with no shot at a title. And no cap space to improve the team. Also, Josh Smith's camp had expressed his desire to the front office for a trade. For the 2nd year in a row.

ESPN Insider mentioned that NJ was considering shopping their draft pick for a vet once Dwight extended in Orl. A proactive GM makes the call to Billy King in NJ and gets that draft pick and the cap relief dumping JJ or Josh brings us.

Whether we draft Lillard,or Hammond doesn't matter. Because now we have the ammo and cap space to make a major move. Whether we package the #6 pick in a trade for a star player, or prepare to rebuild through the draft with JJ and Horford as our mainstays we at least have flexibility and assets.

Chad Ford knew NJ was shopping their pick for a vet. I knew NJ was shopping their pick. Why didn't Sund know? Can the Hawks not afford ESPN Insider? Are they not in constant contact with other GMs throughout the year?

[Jamaaliver]

On that same note, the NJ GM said he called the Hawks to congratulate Danny Ferry on his new job. They started talking about their teams and that's how the JJ trade was borne.

Having a conversation.

We traded our highest paid player for trash and cap space.

If Sund had simply started a conversation with NJ, we could have traded our 2nd highest paid player for a lottery pick and cap space instead.

[MaceCase]

You still aren't making sense. It's like you want to combine selective deals to create your fantasy scenario without zero regard for how they affect each other all with a super clouded hindsight machine. That or you just want Josh Smith off the team badly. I don't know.

Did you somehow forget that the team's 2x time All Star and All NBA player was missing throughout the year in your scenario? Yet they still were in the thick of the playoffs and your plan was to ship Josh off midway through for a lotto pick with zero chance of being the #1 difference maker in the draft to pair up with the 31 year old Joe Johnson for the future.....

Did you overlook the fact Dwight picked up his option on March 14th?.....yea, Jersey sure had that pick on the market for a long time....all of whatever hours between March 14th and the deadline at 3pm on the 15th. I'm sure they only talked to one team out of 28 in that span gauging interest.

So say Josh goes to Brooklyn, is the idea that the ASG after making a surefire tanking move is now in the same mindset (actually seeing the core and especially Joe decidedly fail again) to go out and make the same moves that Ferry accomplished?

Does Ferry even still get sought after and hired?

Does Brooklyn deal with the Hawks twice in a few months to take Joe Johnson still? They were the only team on the planet desperate enough to take Joe on at the size of his deal and the inverse of Josh being better than Wallace is that he on his own is attractive enough to entice both Deron to stay and Dwight to come....and good enough to secure them a better record and therefore a worse pick for the Hawks...therefore Brooklyn can save all of those salary assets to have the best offer of absorbing bad Orlando contracts......or just let them expire and sign Dwight as a free agent.


What it looks like here is that your great plan has gone from saving the Hawks 98 million in salary in the future to saving them less than 25 mil but oh, getting a pick that had zero chance of being in the top of the lottery would of definitely made that more palatable....despite between the pick, Shawne Williams and capholds the team would of had less than 5 million in actual capspace to make a difference seeing as the largest and oldest salary commitment is still firmly entrenched.

Yea, suffice to say, your plan wasn't thoroughly thought out.

[Jamaaliver]

Harsh.

My point is simply that Portland made a steal of a move to get the 6th pick considering Gerald wallace was not expected to be retained.

NJ made a terrible trade to get Gerald Wallace.

Had we been 'opportunistic' we could have been the team that hustled NJ out of a top ten pick in the draft this summer. D Ferry has proven to be 'opportunistic' in only 2 months on the job.

JJ, Horford, Teague, a top 10 pick and some cap space suddenly allows us the flexibility to remake our team.

If Josh Smith was our top player, he also was our top trade asset.

And at 24-19 we were in the midst of one our WORST stretches in years without a true shot at a title.
Consider: Horford went down with the team at 7-3. Two months later the team had managed to make it to 24-19.

We were a whopping 17-16 at this point without AL in the lineup. We weren't in line to win a title. We weren't in line to win the division. We weren't in line to have homecourt advantage. We were a .500 team with Josh and Joe carrying the load at this point.

[Jamaaliver]

yea, Jersey sure had that pick on the market for a long time....all of whatever hours between March 14th and the deadline at 3pm on the 15th. I'm sure they only talked to one team out of 28 in that span gauging interest.

It's customary for teams to engage multiple front offices in these types of negotiations. If nothing But, again, the Hawks should have been the ones to initiate talks once word got out regarding how desperate New Jersey was to make a deal to appease Deron Williams.

Does Ferry even still get sought after and hired?

YES!!! Since Sund's contract was ending and he had expressed interest in no longer being a FT GM here, the team absolutely makes plans to pursue Ferry or another innovative talent.

[Jamaaliver]

So say Josh goes to Brooklyn, is the idea that the ASG after making a surefire tanking move is now in the same mindset (actually seeing the core and especially Joe decidedly fail again) to go out and make the same moves that Ferry accomplished?

Does Brooklyn deal with the Hawks twice in a few months to take Joe Johnson still? They were the only team on the planet desperate enough to take Joe on at the size of his deal and the inverse of Josh being better than Wallace is that he on his own is attractive enough to entice both Deron to stay and Dwight to come....and good enough to secure them a better record and therefore a worse pick for the Hawks...therefore Brooklyn can save all of those salary assets to have the best offer of absorbing bad Orlando contracts......or just let them expire and sign Dwight as a free agent.

Sadly, JJ probably does not go to NJ. But I disagree that no one else would be willing to take on JJ. Three months ago pundits, critics, fans all said JJ and Marvin were untradeable.

Two weeks into his tenure Ferry traded them both.

There are always terrible teams who would give anything to at least be competitive and consistent playoff performers. This year it's NJ. Next year maybe it Washington or Charlotte. (Note: Washington took on Nene and Okafor for this same reason as their youth movement was not producing results. JJ out produces both of those guys.)

[Jamaaliver]

You still aren't making sense. It's like you want to combine selective deals to create your fantasy scenario without zero regard for how they affect each other all with a super clouded hindsight machine. That or you just want Josh Smith off the team badly. I don't know.

My overall point is that I have no doubt we could have acquired this pick by breaking up our 'BIG 3' and being proactive. I actually did have this idea way back after Dwight extended.

And the fact that Lillard has looked so incredibly NBA ready simply reinforces the idea this was a worthy trade.
The fact that the Nets did acquire JJ and then lavished ridiculously bad contracts on Lopez and Humphries tells me this was attainable as Josh is better than both those guys.

We needed an influx of talent. We needed cap space. I've no doubt we could have gotten a better trade out of it considering the season Josh was putting together.

Ironically, I also predicted NJ's interest in JJ before Ferry was even hired. NJ was desperate, we should have been the ones to take advantage of that desperation.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1188130

[MaceCase]

JJ, Horford, Teague, a top 10 pick and some cap space suddenly allows us the flexibility to remake our team.

This is where your plan is entirely half assed. There simply is no capspace with that group. Three months ago that was the exact issue the team was going through where because of cash constraints Josh would have to of been let go for nothing in 2013. You can't try and backtrack with revisionist history and pretend that this wasn't part of the dire reason that Ferry decided to pull the trigger on the Joe trade. Your deal does absolutely nothing for that.

If Josh Smith was our top player, he also was our top trade asset.

And it's your belief that getting a pick that would of been between 6-11 (because Josh very easily could of gotten 4-5 extra wins out of 22 win New Jersey), Memet Okur, Shawne Williams and zero cap relief for a contract that was not even an issue in the first place would of been a worthy return for him.....Man, I've been called a hater for suggesting less egregious deals than that.

And at 24-19 we were in the midst of one our WORST stretches in years without a true shot at a title.
Consider: Horford went down with the team at 7-3. Two months later the team had managed to make it to 24-19.

We were a whopping 17-16 at this point without AL in the lineup. We weren't in line to win a title. We weren't in line to win the division. We weren't in line to have homecourt advantage. We were a .500 team with Josh and Joe carrying the load at this point.

Right.....and the team went on to lose only 7 more games, finished as the 4th seed (better record than Boston) with Homecourt advantage and Al was due back.......but a progressive GM would of jumped the shark at the trade deadline and shipped Josh off for that paltry return rather than.....you know, stay calm and realize that you don't **** your future for the very likely chance that you won't get Lillard.

As far as Joe being able to get traded if he didn't go to Brooklyn....

Lol, I would love for you to find another team that broke up their playoff core in order to tank for John Wall and try to sign Lebron James...failed miserably, ended up with Derrick Favors, Jordan Farmar, Johan Petro and Travis Outlaw instead.

Another garbage season.

Courted Carmelo Anthony tremendously......failed miserably.

Got offered a "sweetheart" deal for Deron Williams.

Courted Dwight Howard......failed miserably.

Feared losing Deron so they ship off their last good asset for Wallace.

Courted Dwight again.....failed miserably

And oh, all while getting a new Russian billionaire owner that threatened their crosstown rivals with becoming better than them for 4 years, hung posters over their buildings, paid for a brand new building for the Nets with mostly his own money and was facing moving into it with no one but Brook Lopez and Marshon Brooks to be the "marquee" guys to open it for the season.


Yea...find me another team with a such a perfect storm of absolute suck and desperation that would of had longstanding damages to their franchise and brand had they not done everything possible to at least put a mediocre team on the court during their move to the largest media market. Add in that all of the new CBA rules start taking place in 2013 and I'd really love to hear who or where of been able to take on JJ's salary while offering the Hawks 90 million in savings.

[Jamaaliver]

This is where your plan is entirely half assed. There simply is no capspace with that group. Three months ago that was the exact issue the team was going through where because of cash constraints Josh would have to of been let go for nothing in 2013. You can't try and backtrack with revisionist history and pretend that this wasn't part of the dire reason that Ferry decided to pull the trigger on the Joe trade. Your deal does absolutely nothing for that.

Alright, let's take a moment and breathe. We can disgaree and debate while remaining congenial and non-combative. We're all Hawks fans here. Even if we have different visions for our team.

My proposition is that moving Josh is the 1st move. Not the final move. We move Josh for a top 10 pick. Suddenly, we have the cap space to extend Teague. We also have Horford, JJ and two draft picks. If Ferry comes in and still makes the Marvin trade, then next year we have a modest amount of capspace.

Right now we have Josh, AL, Teague and garbage. With lots of cap space next summer.
The alternative I suggest would give us JJ, AL, Teague and a top 10 drafted player. With modest amounts of cap space next summer.

My scenario would not give us cap space to sign a huge free agent outright, but it does allow us flexibility.
We call teams offering Horford and the #6 pick in the draft, we'd have all types of offers.

[Jamaaliver]

Right.....and the team went on to lose only 7 more games, finished as the 4th seed (better record than Boston) with Homecourt advantage and Al was due back.......but a progressive GM would of jumped the shark at the trade deadline and shipped Josh off for that paltry return rather than.....you know, stay calm and realize that you don't **** your future for the very likely chance that you won't get Lillard.

I don't really consider us finishing with the 4th seed again as progress.

I view trading Josh for a lottery pick as an aggressive move without blowing the whole team up.
Keep in mind he had expressed a desire to play elsewhere.
Us dumping Josh would have likely resulted in a better draft pick for us.
Us trading the 2nd highest paid player for a very low salary player allows us the space to extend Teague.

It's less about Lillard and more about the high draft pick. The fact Lillard was available at #6 is just icing on the cake.