Offseason Movement: The Hawks screwed the pooch when they failed to sign Josh Childress to a long-term deal. They didn’t think he had any leverage since he was a restricted free agent, but he had the cojones to sign a deal with a Greek team instead of signing a one-year tender with the Hawks. Childress is the biggest talent to leave the NBA to play overseas in the prime of the career, and the Hawks will forever be known as the team that let him go. They replaced Childress with…wait for it…Maurice Evans.
Keep Your Eye On: Marvin Williams
Thus far, the former #2 overall pick has been decidedly average – he ranks 29th amongst all small forwards in PER. The good news is that he’s just 22 and entering the final year of his rookie contract. His qualifying offer next year ($7.3 milllion) is big enough that the Hawks could conceivably pass if he doesn’t show substantial improvement this season. The team usually went with Childress at small forward in crunch time, but now those minutes should belong to Williams, and he needs to make he most of them.
The Big Question: Which direction is this team headed?
The Hawks were a surprise playoff team last season and they took the NBA champs to seven games in the first round. But Mike Bibby is a year older (and a year slower) and they lost utility-man Josh Childress. I thought it was a mistake to trade for Bibby, and now he’s in the final year of his contract ($15.2 million), which means he might become a distraction as the season wears on. If they elect to let him play out his deal, the team will have a load of cap room next summer, so it looks like the Hawks could take a step back before taking another step forward.
Outlook: The long-term outlook is bright. The Hawks have Josh Smith (5 years) and Al Horford (4 years) locked up for the foreseeable future. Joe Johnson is under contract for two more years, but the Hawks have enough salary cap flexibility to make a splash in the next year or two for a star free agent. Until then, they’ll have to settle for the chance to fight for a playoff spot in the mediocre East.
Tag: Atlanta Hawks (Page 13 of 13)
In what looks like a very easy decision, the Atlanta Hawks elected to match the Memphis Grizzlies’ offer to Josh Smith. The deal “is believed” to be for five years and $58 million.
I estimated Smith’s value to be $13-$14 million per season, so if the Grizzlies’ offer was indeed for that reported length and total compensation, they did the Hawks a favor by enabling them to lock Smith up for less than $12 million per season without having to go through the rigmarole of a contract negotiation.
The Memphis Edge (blog) is reporting that, according to NBA sources, the Memphis Grizzlies have sent Josh Smith an offer sheet worth $58 million.
As the only team left with significant room under the salary cap, the Griz have shifted out of a summer holding pattern and targeted the versatile 6-9, 235-pound forward.
Atlanta has seven days to match, per league rules, once Smith receives the offer sheet.
The Hawks have said they would match any contract offer to the 22-year-old Smith, but are on the hook next season with big contracts for Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson.
Should the Griz land Smith he is expected to play power forward alongside Rudy Gay at small forward, O.J. Mayo at shooting guard and Mike Conley at point guard.
The length of the contract is unkown, but that sounds like a four-year deal to me. If it were five years in length, it would average less than $12 million per season, and the Hawks are likely to match that. In a recent post, What Are These Guys Worth?, I estimated J-Smoov’s value to be $13.0-$14.0 million per season. On a four-year deal, that would total $52-$56 million.
That Conley-Mayo-Gay-Smith lineup has some serious potential, that’s for sure. The Grizzlies should be congratulated for at least making a move on Smith. It was about time that they tried to spend some of that cap space.
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