Inside_Man

Quote: Any chance that even with Stern's blessing, the Judge will still not remove him? That depends on how big a piece of the judge Belkin owns.

We need Al's salary to meet the 75% cap minimum. At this point, we also don't have enough players. Maye we move him at the deadline, but not now unless it's a sign and trade for someone like Curry.

two words Jealous Hater

It's "The Vegas Craps" diesel - The Craps!!

Quote: Belkin's the majority owner, so what do you not understand? The team is not broken into 9 owners with each persons %. It's broken into 3 syndicate groups, each of which has one vote on ownership matters. Though Belkin is the only member of his syndicate, he only has 1/3 of the ownership vote, and his is not the syndicate with the largest ownership position, that is the Wash DC guys with 40%.

He'll move the team to Vegas and rename them.... The Las Vegas Craps!!!! Oh - I'm on a roll today!!!!

I'm just confident. Stern will not let anyone trash the value of a franchise. He'll give the green light to remove Belkin. The white-hat owners will then go back to court and say they have the NBA's permission, and that jerk-off homer judge will relent, and then the trade will go through. Belkin will go down kicking and screaming like the whiny bitch that he is. He'll probably sue the NBA and the other owners anything else that moves.

One press report says that immediately after the court decision. The owners went into a meeting INCLUDING BELKIN[!/b] What are the odds they sign Johnson to an offer sheet without a trade?

I think the consensus on this board has been that long-term Smoove could easily be a PF. As far as Al goes, if he could shoot just 75% from the line, I'd be interested in finding a place for him, but his crappy free throw shooting hurts too much, imo.

I think we need another big. I mean, Collier is worthless. But you probably just get a 1 year vet at this point and look to fill that hole with something better later.

I read that on the Suns ESPN board.

Quote: The people of Atlanta will never forgive Belkin for this. What does he care - he wants the team in Vegas. He has no ties to Atlanta.

1) Even if Belkin is right that the Suns wouldn't have matched - now that the Hawks have hung their dirty laundry out for all to see, of course Phoenix will match. Our only options now are do the sign and trade, or not get Johnson. 2) The court case isn't whether Belkin has to follow majority rule, it's whether they can remove him as governor. He may be right about that. 3) Since the owners took a vote on this trade, they've presumambly taken votes on all personnel matters. Why would they do that if Belkin has all the power he says he has? It makes no sense, unless Belkin is dead wrong (which he is.) 4) Belkin doesn't want to spend the cap, he only wants to spend the minimum. Belkin also says those draft picks are valuable. Well he's right, because if he only spends the minimum, then the Hawks will continue to stink and those pics WILL be valuable. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy. Of course, if we spend all our cap dollars, then we're in the playoffs, and the pics we gave away are worthless.

The good news I gotta say is that I like these other owners!!!

Question #1. Would Belkin rather own 1/3 of Hawks/Thrashers/Phillips or 100% of the Hawks? The Answer is clearly 100% of an NBA team. He's clearly trashing the value of this team in Atlanta. My guess, he wants to split with the other owners and walk away with the entire team and leave them the areana and Phillips. He's killing hoops in Atlanta, but he doesn't care, because with his plan, the team ends up in Vegas. The problem is the other owner's shares of Phillips are worth much without an NBA tenant for the arena.

nm

What an effing maroon. I wouldn't want anyone that stupid on the Hawks. We already have stupid owners, stupid players would jump the shark.

Belkin is objecting to the signing bonus. When Denver offered KMart a contract last year, it had a huge frontloaded bonus - then the talks switched to sign and trade - at that time, the bonus came out of KMart's contract. That's what should have been done here. BK screwed up the negotiations. He should have known to offer the picks in a sign and trade, or the bonus in an offer sheet deal, but not both. So apparantly the problem is between Belkin and JJ's agent, who's holding out for the bonus. The Suns could care less, and are insisting they'll match if the Hawks mess it up.

This makes no sense. Marc Stein supposedly said that the trade is held up because Belkin doesn't want to give up 2 pics, so they are waiting to see if we get Zaza and the trade will be Diaw, Zaza and 1 pic for JJ. yeah - I know - pass the good s@#t your way.

Quote: I mean obviously Walker is worth more than a lottery protected first rounder. Don't be so sure - Boston isn't even getting one of those for him from Miami.

Quote: this article gives no more information than the AJC article gave this morning. Both articles clearly leave the impression that Sekou has someone from the other owners feeding him bits of info.

Look - This JJ contract has been on the table for weeks. Belkin HAD to be on board for it. He HAD to. Which means the part he's not agreeing to is the sign and trade. Especially after the Phoenix management holds a news conference and bad mouths JJ and JJ has bad mouthed management. Belkin must be wondering why the !@$# are we doing a sign and trade instead of just having him sign an offer sheet. There's no way with all the bad mouthing that they'll match, and no one would trade for that contract anyway. So call the bluff. My guess is that BK's position is that once the sign and trade talks were underway, everything was done in good faith and you can't back stab like that. Belkin doesn't give a rat's ass about BK's reputation and just wants to play hardball. That's all I can figure out.

Well - this morning the board was in two camps - those who said the problem was serious (diesel, moi, and others) and those who said it was just about missing signatures. It'a now clear that the issue is serious. I remember when Spirit bought the team that Belkin was going to make the hoops decisions. So clearly, he's going to enforce that part of the agreement. The problem is it looks like he's being outvoted by 70% to 30%. A black eye for Atlanta sports. fwiw - when Belkin earlier tried to buy into the NBA he was rebuffed because he had ties to organized crime interests in Boston (I'm from Boston, fwiw.) That's why he was earlier rejected as an owner by the league. Eventually, he restructured his businesses to (seemingly) cut those ties.

Marc Stein of ESPN reporting that Belkin is not convinced. Trade may not go through. I WAS RIGHT, this morning! (as was teh Diesel) props to you - buddy.

Blekin owns a bigger piece than anyone else. Quote: Belkin, has not signed off on completing it, two people familiar with the situation said. 'signed off' doesn't mean the same as 'signed' - the latter means he hasn't signed the paperwork, the former means he hasn't agreed to it. Quote: The team's other owners and management are in favor of the deal. The implication is clear that Belkin is NOT in favor of it. Belkin owns a bigger piece than anyone else, and the original stories on the ownership was that he would call the shots for hoops, the Wash DC guys called the shots on Hockey and the local guys called the shots on Phillips Arena