thefloydian

It is as bad as when we gave Joe $120 million.

No. It might be bad, but you have to try really hard to sign a worse deal than JJ's.

Interesting that this free agent signing with another team not named "Hawks" remains on the homecourt forum. *looks at thread starter*

Is this a joke?

The Rockets need Horford much more than Bynum.

Huh?

I hadn't really paid any attention to Lewis over the past couple seasons, so I just looked up his stats for last year. Wow. How did he fall of that hard? I didn't expect greatness, but he shot 24% from 3 and had 8 ppg in 26 mins for Washington. That is beyond horrible.

I'm sure this has already been said somewhere, but this only makes sense if Howard is coming to town in a trade involving one of the other guards. Otherwise, we have a crowded backcourt and this signing will only serve to land us a crappier draft pick next year.

I think there is something to be said for a "rag tag team" with a lot of heart and chemistry, as long as you have some All-Star caliber players (which we have: Josh, Al). The Mavs, Pistons, and even the Spurs had teams that fit that bill when they won their titles. Danny Ferry is bringing that Spurs model over here and I am excited to see how it works. This will be a fun team to cheer for against the stacked teams in the league.

You do realize the Mavs have Dirk, right? The Pistons thing was an anomaly, but they played amazing defense and had a lot of underrated players (especially Rasheed). I don't even know what to say about the Spurs. Calling them "rag tag" is ridiculous.

NBA GM's valued Rodman at Will Perdue. That was the best they could get. You realize that is less than what Bosh would get in a trade, right? As a fan, I enjoy seeing teams make savvy trades and smart draft picks to put a team together (like the current Celtics or 80's Celtics, for example). I don't like seeing players under contract conspiring to join together on a team and than have that team reap a massive windfall of talent. The way these teams are forming is absolutely something new. IMO, it is something negative for me as a fan. If you take your interpretation of events, however, you end up in the same place. If players in the past were willing to band together in lesser markets but now are only willing to do so in big markets, that is still negative for the league. So we can argue the point, but the punchline seems to be the same.

I don't see how it's relevant who he was traded for. He averaged 15 boards per game and played good defense. You keep telling me who he was traded for, but I don't believe anyone who wasn't trying to win an argument would say that Bosh's year this year was better than that. I realize when I'm banging my head into a wall though, so I will stop here. Like I said, I don't have a problem with the super teams. There have always been super teams. But I agree with you, the only way to give the smaller markets a chance is to eliminate them via an alteration to the salary cap that allows individual players to be paid more while leaving the overall cap value the same. I don't think there is anyway to keep the super team option available while also giving smaller market teams a chance.

What is the point of dropping Joe if we are gonna give Ibaka/Harden/Curry max contracts next year? If no Dwight, Josh is gone. Does Horford want to rebuild? If not he is gone. So we are stuck with maybe Teague.

The only way any of this makes any sense is if they completely blow the team up and try to snag that Shabazz kid in the draft.

I think if the Heat tried to trade Bosh today that they would get more than Zaza Pachulia so the market speaks pretty clearly on this one. On your question, I think they would take Bosh. His scoring is important to their floor balance on offense. The Heat already have a black hole at center offensively and if they had one at both PF and C that could really cripple their team. Rodman would be a superior rebounder and a better defender but I don't think that would be enough to allow them to run an offense solely through their 1-3 positions (i.e., limited perimeter shooter + LBJ + Wade + shot adverse PF + do nothing C). Orlando was run by a GM who was so bad he made BK look like a genius. I wouldn't want to stay anywhere were they gave Otis Smith a job for that many years either. That doesn't make the Dwight Howard saga any better for the NBA. The Dwight sage will have ticked off a lot of fans and made him look like a foolish, selfish and shifting person at the end of the day. Turning Dwight and Lebron from heros into villains isn't my idea of a good strategy for promoting the NBA.

If you think that the Heat would take Bosh over Rodman then we should probably just stop arguing about this because we just disagree. All I will say is that Bosh will never be a hall of famer or even have hall of fame consideration. To the second point, I don't see why the Howard thing is bad for the NBA at all. I don't know where this idea came from that you should ride it out with a team that was, by your own admission, run by a moron. That would just be stupid on his part. Now, I do agree that they should change the salary cap rules to give elite players a larger slice of the pie, and that this would stop some of the big-market super team situations, but this isn't anything new. Championship teams have always had multiple great players. The real problem isn't that these guys are joining forces, it's that they're only willing to join forces in big markets.

Rodman was given away to the Bulls by the Spurs for backup center Will Perdue. Does the fact that this was the best deal the Spurs could get clearly put his value in the NBA in perspective? W.i.l.l...P.e.r.d.u.e Now Rodman was outstanding for the Bulls, but he remains a role player in my mind because there were probably 20 other power forwards you could have added to that team if Rodman was taken away without making a bit of difference in them winning the title. He wasn't a guy who you build around, he was a guy who stepped onto the team in place of Grant and did a great job doing nothing but playing defense and rebounding. What was the difference for the Bulls between having Rodman and having say Dale Davis? They are champions with either of those limited players at PF, IMO.

Do you think the Heat would rather have Bosh or Chicago-era Dennis Rodman? And how do you respond to the other part of that post? How long was Dwight Howard supposed to stay on the same team with the corpse of Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu?

There are some really good free agents available in 2013. Now will any of them come? Possibly we will have roughly 2 max deals for 2 good to great players to come. Though I don't think Curry, Harden, or Ibaka are worth max deals. Plus I doubt Bynum would come here after being in the spotlight of LA. But still we can land some good players next year.

Yes, we can land some good players. But good players don't get you out of the second round. We might as well have kept Joe if the plan was to sign someone like Harden.

Jordan didn't do it himself. He did stick through tough times and woefully sub-market pay to build with Scottie and the role players (Ho and Rodman were outstanding role players but they were role players for those teams). If Jordan has started demanding a trade and letting it be known that he and Hakeem were thinking of joining forces in Houston, then he would never have won a championship in Chicago. It would have been drama (the bad kind) and would have undermined the team ala Carmelo, Dwight, etc.

Didn't Howard get drafted in '04? He's been there for a while and they haven't done anything other than sign overpaid small forwards. And Rodman wasn't anymore of a roleplayer than Bosh or Ray Allen.

http://blogs.ajc.com...rd-sweepstakes/ Looks like it's because we aren't willing to give up key pieces for a 1 year rental since he isn't willing to resign with anyone other than Brooklyn. which Im completely fine with, lets just get who we can this year. Go out and compete and hopefully have better luck in free agency next year. Plus Smoove may be traded soon as well now, I think Ferry only kept him around in hopes that he could lure Dwight here but obviously not even Smoove could convince him. Time to build around Horford and Teague.

The Hawks will never build a contender through free agency unless it involves Howard and Paul (which it won't, obviously).

Chicago wasn't a super market and was run by a guy who was notoriously cheap and Jordan stuck around and built anyway. Jordan competed against 28 other teams at the time he was actually winning championships. How is 29 teams from that era so different than the dynamic today? If Jordan had the attitude of today's stars he would have joined the Knicks and Patrick Ewing, et al. a the end of the 80's when Chicago was finishing behind the Hawks in the bottom half of the East. Either way, the issue to me is not player desires -- it is what makes for a better product as a fan. These season long dramas of players forcing themselves out of their current contracts are cancerous to the league, IMO.

Let's not pretend like Jordan "did it himself." He played with some great players. Scottie Pippen is a hall of famer. So is Dennis Rodman. Go look at the teams with Jerry West and Wilt. The Boston Celtics int he 80's had like 4 hall of famers. Magic's teams in the 80's also had a ton of great players. This isn't really a new thing.

Or with Lebron... Or with Deron.... Or with Carmelo... Or with Paul... Or with Bosh...

I don't have a problem with how things work now so much, but I do think if you upped the max contract payable to one player while keeping the salary cap largely the same it would kill two birds with one stone. It would stop people like Jason Richardson and other middling players from making the obscene amounts of money they do and instead shift that money to the elite players that actually deserve it, and it would be easier for smaller market teams to keep their stars.

Oh, jesus.

Can I offer something stupid to the conversation? I might go for a Dwight rental and see what happens. If you acquire Howard by trade now, then he literally cannot get to Brooklyn without the Hawks' consent so you can totally block that avenue (they can't sign him as a FA; Hawks must consent to any sign and trade). In the meantime, you have a year to work on Howard and convince him that Atlanta is the place to be. We have all seen that Howard changes his mind quite a bit. Josh can also work on trying to recruit Paul from LAC / Harden from OKC / etc. If Josh and Dwight get on board, you have a very compelling argument to other free agents. (It isn't like Atlanta is a hard sell ala Memphis or Utah for lifestyle). If it doesn't work out, you start over with top lottery picks and unlimited cap room which may be preferable to a plan of signing second tier free agents. If it does work out, you end up with premium talent and a legit shot at being a contender.

This wouldn't bother me at all, but I'm one of the few people who want to be in the lottery it seems. I don't see Ferry doing it, though.

Perhaps because if you've read even one of my posts about this you will see that I've said since the start Ferry would only give up Horford for Howard with an extension and not a one year rental?

Yeah but that's obviously not happening. Howard isn't signing anything. That's the point. All of this talk is pointless. The only way he's getting traded is to the Nets or some team willing to rent him for a year.

No

Yeah, that's why I don't think he's getting traded until the trade deadline at earliest. I don't see anyone being willing to trade anything valuable for him with no guarantees. Weirder things have happened, though.

I think this Nets rumour is hilarious. If the Nets could get Howard with a deal surrounding Lopez, Brooks and 1st round picks they would have had him already. Now all of a sudden Orl says yes to the deal with less 1st round picks coming in because NJ needs them to entice Clev to overpay Kris Humphries. Come on now, it smells like BULLLSHHHHHHHHHHHHYT.

Yeah, I don't see Howard getting traded before the season unless the Rockets are still willing to trade for him without any guarantees.

I'd rather pick up Al Jefferson and keep Horford.

If Ferry was going to do that he should have just kept JJ.

Joe Johnson is no Paul Pierce, Wallace is no Lebron James. With iso-Joe, Wallace who can't score on his own, they will simply be the NY knicks II. However, Deron Williams to Dwight will be good but not enough for a ring.

I wouldn't even call Wallace a poor man's Josh Smith at this point.

We cant win the whole thing without Howard- C Horford-SF Josh-SF Everyone is Small, U go BIG! 101 dam Horford is in my Sig for a reason!

Having Dwight Howard on your team makes up for any lack of size you might otherwise. have. That's kind of why he's so good. Smith is better than Horford.

Never said I did not like the dump...I love it lol I have been saying all this time ASG did not have the cahonies to do this , or the interest- I have been saying it is not gonna happen and they are offering trash for D12..I was right lol

So do you think they should trade Horford for a 1-year Howard rental?

At this point I don't think there is a front runner. If there is, it's the Nets, but it doesn't really look like he ends up there either. The only other realistic scenario was LA, but if the reports are true and Bynum won't sign then Howard is going to play out the season with the Magic.

I don't understand a lot of the people on this board. Of course it was a salary dump. And it was a smart one. Whether or not Howard signs with the Hawks, Joe Johnson's contract had to go. The Hawks were going nowhere with that team and it was only going to get worse. Trading one of the only remaining good players for 1 year of Dwight Howard would be idiotic.I don't know what kind of weird fantasy you guys have, but the only semi-realistic expectation was that Howard would sign the following year.