xhawk

Old country boy saying: "A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush."

Would you rather have X amount of $$$ right now, guaranteed for 4 years

I completely agree with this.

There are two unknowns: (1) where basket revenues (and therefore the cap) are falling to and (2) what the new CBA will be for the 2012 season. Depending on what happens with (1) and (2) or at least the perceptions of what is happening, owners could really pull back. But to be realistic, 20 million dollars per year is the max he going to get from another team and thats not promised. I'd say lets offer a flat 16 million dollar deal with incentives (Sund seems to like those). That would be very reasonable.

Of course they're still interested.

But they cannot offer as much as the Hawks.

BTW, there's still Brian Skinner and Sean Marks out there in terms of veteran bigs.

And because of luxury tax, whatever they offer, they will have to double it.

"He can shoot"

That's not what the numbers say. He is a career 40% shooter. Craw is basically a poor man's AI.

Lets look at the whole picture for his shooting:

Last year he ranked 14th in Free throw percentage (.872) and 10th in Minutes per Game (38.1). The free throw percentage is usually a good indicator of a good shooter. And I say that his shooting percentage suffers because of all the minutes he plays. His minutes will go down and I suspect that his shooting percentage will go up because of it. Next, averaging between 4 and 5 assists per game, he has always been the best distributor on his teams (except for a partial year with Duhon in NY). For the Hawks, he will be the third best distributor on the team. In other words, he won't have to create his own shot all the time and he will have people who can get him the ball in the right places and situations.

This Sim League sounds like fantasy league using fantasy players. :smile:

Being up here in the Boston area, I can say that Smoltz is taking alot of heat for his pitching. But really, he should have been in the bullpen. Or actually, he should have just finished his career in Atlanta.

Is it me is DEN just giving away players AND PICKS? (Read below)

This is better than the deal that Phoenix made in 2007 (and I don't believe those picks are protected):

The Phoenix Suns today traded center Kurt Thomas and two future first-round draft picks to the Seattle SuperSonics for a future conditional second-round pick. In addition to salary cap relief, the trade leaves Phoenix with an $8 million trade exception for their use in future dealings.

New Series I'm starting. Who will be better. I'm talking over a career. Yes, it's all guesswork, but I think the comparisons will be interesting.

Lawson with his speed and Teague with his explosiveness are in the best positions to take advantage of the NBA rules. I ended up voting Lawson because he has shown he can excel with alot of talent around him.

The people in PETA are absolutely obsessive. It's like borderline crazy. I've been saying this since they were determined to ruin Mike Vick's life after he had paid his debt to society. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I am not even sure why anyone even listens to them or joins their organization. Any ideas?

I could be wrong but I'll bet it had to do with speeding up the recovery from his knee injury late last season. Steroids not only make you stronger, they make your body heal faster from injury. Not saying that he will but it will be interesting to see if Nelson also tests positive for something after coming back from his shoulder injury sooner than expected.

Traceman, I believe that you are correct. He says it was an honest mistake, but who buys and takes unknown supplements from the store; especially when you have a franchise that provides such services:

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/61026/20090807/suspension_will_cost_lewis_$17m/

Dude isn't coming back so there isn't anything to resolve. As much as most of us like him, we have Crawford now--who is a more expensive upgrade over Flip. We need at least one more big man before we get another guard...

Its not likely, but if he can't find a multi year deal, then he could be back for he minimum (it's always good be a deep team).

Numbers wise, it is definitely Joe. With the Miller signing and possibly a healthy more mature Oden, Roy's numbers are headed down from last year (but in the same breath, Portland will be a better team than last year).

Thanks bird_dirt.

I agree, Miami looks dangerous as hell. I wonder though, if it might be time to get rid of this luxury tax and just go with a hard cap like the NFL.

Looking at the Miami situation....

To talk numbers, Miami has James Jones making roughly 5 million, Beasley at roughly 5 million, Chalmers at roughly 1 Million and a cap hold for Dwayne Wade of at least 20 million. If they trade their 2010 picks and renounce ALL their free agents (except for Wade of course) and if the cap drops to 54 million (for instance), that leaves 23 million dollars under the cap to sign players. That does not leave enough room for 2 max contracts, but maybe two strong players.

However considering that other team's free agents are already taking a salary hit by changing teams, I don't think they will take a further hit to give that team more flexibility (even with Miami's favorable tax situation). Also, considering the possible lockout for the season starting in 2012, they will probably go for the most money. Also, I don't know if Miami is one player away from winning a championship.

You got the point... but we also need to realize that it is only the market that sets the price tag on a player!

In keeping with that quote, the market says that Brian Cardinal is worth 6.7 million dollars a year. So I don't think Smoove is over-payed at 10 million.

ORLANDO - Dwight has never really owned Horford / Dwight rebounds on anybody but he has never had huge nights against Al + Josh ? The big factor is tha tCarter has always been a Hawks killer, but I think a healthy Joe will water that down this year...But the big thing about ORL is that they kept Peitrus and added Barnes and those guys are big time hustle guys that defend very well...(1-3)

We might do better against Orlando due to the Rashard Lewis suspension.

Edit:

Actually we don't play them during the first ten games...but maybe it will be a distraction OR their chemistry might be hurt OR Carter will be fatigued because he has to pick up the minutes early in the season.

Okay, let's say that is true. Who do we get to even make it to the playoffs let alone get a chip if we don't sign Joe? And honestly who is this player in the NBA who's won a title without a lot of help? Not Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Garnett, Duncan, or Shaq. So who else you got?

Not Micheal Jordan either (Scottie, Rodman, Grant, etc.)

Woodson was probably gonna stay even if Joe didn't say that he wanted Woody back... :zipper:

Joe does not strike me as the kind of person that would lay down demands. However, if he did, hopefully he will take that into account when signing an extension.

I think this contract does help set the market for JJ. Their accomplishments are basically the same as are their stats. I think the contract will likely be $80-$85 Million over 5 years.

Agreed. However, Joe's agent might point to Rashard Lewis' 6 year 110 million dollar contract as the comparable contract.

Yes. Let's sign players not good enough to play in Milwaukee.

Well to be fair...Bowen's release was more financially motivated, but Salim has no such excuse.

If this is true, this a huge improvement. I remember a few games the last few seasons were not even televised at all (not locally, on League Pass, nothing).

Nice to see an article that does not call us the worst team in the league... :)

The only thing the author forgot to add is that Woodson is also in a contract year.

Roy couldnt even get his team past the first round, Joe won game 7 by himself for the most part.

...

I think Joe tries to play a modest game and not take it over until its absolutely neccesary and almost too late

These are both very good points. The only thing I'd add is that Joe is one of those players that won't get respect unless he wins a title. I heard alot of similar talk about Duncan before he won a title.

You over simplified it.

You simply took the ( luxury tax limit ) - ( your percieved current Hawks contracts) = $6.7 mill to spend

It is not that simple as I and others have stated. That is not the way you get the answer to how much money the Hawks have to spend to sign other teams FA's. When you are over the cap you can only use exceptions such as the MLE & the small BAE to sign other team's FAs.

On top of that we can only guess how Marvin, Bibby, and ZaZa's contracts are structured. They could be front loaded contracts or they could be evenly distributed through the years of their respective contract length, (or like most contracts) they start low and go up with a 5% to 10% raise each year.

I understand the MLE, the bi-annual exception and minimum salary exception and the fact we are over the cap (I did run the numbers) :). But between all those things, it is actually that simple. If we want to spend that money, we have the means under the CBA.

Also, for Bibby and Zaza' s contract, I don't have to guess. I have a source: www.espn.com. They are reporting Bibby's as front-loaded-decreasing each year and Zaza's as even. Some might disagree with them, but that is what they are reporting.

Not really.

We are probably over the cap (don't know for sure how Bibby, ZaZa, and MArvin;s contracts are structured) now but under the luxury tax limit. Teams cannot go over the cap to sign other team's FA unless they use the MLE. I believe the MLE is $5.78 mill this year.

If I do understand the cap rules accurately please correct me.

What do you mean by "Not really."? The 63.2 million number I calculated is over the cap, just not over the luxury tax line. Even over the cap, we have options to sign players with (as other posters have commented).

Does anyone know what space we have left since we signed MW.

I believe that after the Marvin signing we are at 63.2 Million with 10 players under contract. However, it looks like the salary cap and the luxury tax threshold might shrink next year so thats probably the biggest worry. With luxury tax at 69.9 million this year, that leaves 6.7 million dollars to sign other players (4).

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/52196297.html

Well Joe Smith going back to Cavs most likely now.....

The Cavs payroll is around 80 mil right now with 39 mill already going to Shaq, Z and Varejao. Giving the luxury tax situation, whatever they pay Joe Smith, they will have to double it. I don't see him returning to the Cavs.