sturt

Too lazy to run the numbers... does the proposed first trade bump us over the cap then? And, broken record alert... just hard to imagine any team taking Scott's contract until they know for sure that they're getting an on-court asset, or know for sure that they're getting an off-court voided contract that they can cut to get below the tax threshold.

They're only on the hook for something like half of Moose' contract until January, if I recall correctly. That's hardly a big price for some insurance until Scott's situation is resolved, imo. In fact, $1m is hardly a big price period for the 5th big on the roster.

There indeed may be nothing nefarious. I'd intended to suggest as much in how I worded the initial post. But. Do you consider this to be a nothing-job @AUhawksfan? "With the Hawks, Blackstone was responsible for managing player contract and trade negotiations, administration of the salary cap, directing the basketball operations staff and strategy." Really?

http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/basketball/hawks-assistant-gm-michael-blackstone-leaving-team/nr5sg/ Totally speculative, but can't help but wonder if some things went on, or did not that should have, that have Budcox pushing some people out the door.

None of the parties have any seeming motivation right now to give-in to the other... ie, those other teams' GMs that have the room to make an RFA offer for the moment can't reconcile making one b/c they already have SF covered to their satisfaction. POR and Harkless meanwhile are at an impasse, given that POR is already over-committed for next year's salary ledger, and that Harkless is not anxious to sign a qualifying offer that would only have him making $4m this season. What this situation needs is for some other team to suddenly find themselves looking to fill a void due to injury or otherwise. (And as set forward in this thread, that team could be us.)

Spoke to why POR would do this, but not why Harkless would sign-off on the $8m in the first year that we would be able to offer from the Teague exception... His alternative for right now is to sign the $4m qualifying offer, and become a UFA next summer, all the while accepting a lesser role in POR that portends to suppress his production. How many years on the contract? Personally, I'd want at least 2, and would do 3 ideally.

Scott is more valuable to us b/c of the offense he is capable of providing that Harkless at this stage is not. Thabo is more valuable for the same reason. Contenders can't shed players like Scott and Thabo and expect to continue to be contenders. Hardaway and Harkless are virtual equals in terms of overall production, with THjr one year older, but I'd still prefer Hardaway b/c (a) he's actually taken over games offensively before and seems capable of becoming a viable SG in this league, and (b) his defense did, in fact, seem to improve so markedly by the time last season ended. I'm one of those who see this as Moose' tipping point year, others thought last year was that... but because of the age difference (two years) and the likelihood that Harkless' ceiling is higher, as laid out in my most recent post, I'd be inclined to go after Moe over Moose if the opportunity worked out to do that. As for the potential being equal to that of Bembry and Prince, I'll grant that could possibly be true. But having said that, my perception is no GM would deal anything higher than a #20-something draft pick for Harkless. I do like that Moe's shown himself capable of hitting 3's at a 38% clip, but he's obviously got to rediscover whatever magic he's lost in that way. And he thrived in the POR offense, so there's some good upside trajectory there. Defensively, he's got a lot going for him, but even there, he's not put it all together yet. Buy low, sell high, tho, right?

As things currently are, I've been one to think that Budcox is prepared to go to war with this roster, minus either Scott or Moose, depending on how Scott's legal trouble evolves before the start of the season--Scott being Plan A, and Moose being Plan B. Therefore, I've been working with these observations... - Total salary against the cap (ie, excluding salaries of Delaney and Jack, signed w/ exceptions) of the 15-man assuming Scott plays for us and excluding the unguaranteed portion of Moose's contract is $94,257,115, - Total salary against the cap of the 15-man assuming Moose plays for us and excluding Scott is $91,446,006. (source: Basketball Insiders and also Yahoo which indicates Moose' guaranteed portion of his salary to be $493,471) Salary cap is $94,143,000. So, either there is some discrepancy b/t the salaries as they've been reported vs. as what they actually are, or another move of some kind would have to occur to get under the cap. I'm inclined to assume that it's the former since only about $100,000 separates those two numbers. As said above, personally, I'm persuaded if Scott is able to play, that's the strong preference given his production, and all the more so, relative to his salary. So, I've not even really examined obtaining Harkless in that event that he's able to fulfill this year's contract. But if that's not an option, there's a stout argument for trying to acquire Harkless. The SDS writer proposed trading Splitter. Not only do I prefer to keep him, the talk in POR as far as I'm reading is that they're really overloaded on frontcourt players, and short of acquiring a player who is definitively better, they're unlikely to be interested. The alternative I've explored is nudging ourselves over the cap, which if I'm not mistaken (and I can be), would enable us even now to still retroactively obtain a trade exception from the Teague trade. Then, with that trade exception, we'd do a sign-and-trade w/ POR to gain Harkless. To do that nudge, though, requires some further reconstruction, starting with revising the Delaney deal so that we sign him with cap space instead of an exception. That pushes the total salaries from $91,446,006 to $93,946,006. With that, we need to trade Moose to whoever can return to us a salary between $1,212,690 and $1,623,544. Virtually any team that has signed a 2nd rounder from this draft is a potential trade partner, but one that seemingly could be interested to trade a veteran in that price range for a big like Moose is CLE, ie, our old friend Dahntay Jones. Make such a trade, get nudged over the cap line, and then make a SnT deal using our trade exception space with POR for Harkless who is one of those relatively rare combo forwards with the size to legitimately guard forwards of all sizes from Kawhi Leonard to LBJ, but who they appear to be unwilling to make any commitment to due to how they have already over-committed themselves for the 17-18 season's payroll. Bonus: We would come out of this with the full MLE to-boot.

I see him as a young buck defensive stopper first, with the potential to develop his shot. With Thabo's contract coming to an end, and given that he's been a starter on what proved to be a good team, there's some rationale for consideration.

Only if we lose Scott. But maybe then. Ironically enough, I've been on my own playing around with some ideas just in the last 24 hours. He might be a smart alternative to Moose. Might. Still thinking it through. (Whoever writes for SDS, we must be mind-morphing... except not at the expense of losing Splitter who seems to be the most unappreciated talent on this roster by far.)

But you know.... now that I think about it... that's a pretty large trade exception to just forego. First things first, seems to me, something needs to break with Scott's situation, though, in order to allow Budcox to know exactly how to maneuver.

If we are, indeed, over the cap--and as far as I can tell, that's the case--we should have the mid-level exception, not just room exception (though in fact, fanatic maintained that we signed him under the room)... and, in order to have gained the trade exception, as the article points out, we had to be over the cap. But I'm cautious because I'm not sure how we got there. The only way we could have vaulted over the cap, as far as I'm aware, is for us (a) to have re-signed Horf w/ Bird rights, or (b) to have made a trade in which we took back more salary than we sent out within the trade exception parameter. Neither of those occurred. So, since that's the case, I'm under the impression that we're going to have to get under the cap before the season starts. When you subtract the Delaney and Jack contracts (both signed under exceptions), and then you subtract Muscala's which is not fully guaranteed (or, alternatively, Scott's)... that puts us just under the $94.1m threshold. All of which reverses what I said at first in this post... we do only have the room exception, and we do not get the trade exception from the Teague deal. Someone correct me if I'm missing something. Accordingly... it would seem to behoove us to make a relatively small trade where we take back just enough in salary to get over the cap. Then again, who would that involve? Can't see any of THjr, Thabo or Korver being dealt for a better asset at their salary level.

@RandomFan: Link? I'd like to read more.

Good question. I haven't seen hawksfanatic write about it, nor have I read anything elsewhere.

I missed that... nice catch. Not that it matters very much, but I also failed to notice that Jack's cap figure is several hundred thousand less than his actual salary. And the Delaney number makes so much more sense at $2.5m/yr in light of Kudminskas getting $3m from NYK... when we thought he was just getting $1.25m/yr, I was scratching my head.

... envisioning Hot's kid as Joey, and Al being cast in the Roger Murdock role of an Airplane re-make... "busting my buns evvveryyy night".... (hehe)

Wow. So this is what it's like to have some national media attention. Where'd all this come from? (... he said, knowingly)

Did the same thing with Terran Petteway and Lamar Patterson this time last year. Not a biggie, imo. Think they'll groom him to see if he can replace Hump, but Captain Obvious has said his career path seems much more likely to go Petteway's direction than Lamar's.

In fairness, LeBron turns 32 this December. He should mop the floor with Prince or anyone else Prince's age. But when Prince gets to be 25 and LeBron is 35, nature will have its way, and things won't be quite so uneven. It is a young man's game.

I understand the comment, but be fair... most players would answer that question something like, "I just want to be all I can be," or "I'm just here to fill whatever role they ask me to fill," etc. I thought there actually is some creativity and some stark honesty in how Taurean chose to reply instead.... essentially, "I expect to follow and to lead and to make a name for myself, and yes, ROY is a goal, too." Have to respect a guy who doesn't take the easy answer, and who admits he aspires to be exceptional, throwing caution to the wind that his critics will pounce in a big way after that first 0/8 game with no rebounds and a -20 +/- . I just like the attitude. Humble but honest about his ambition to excel. I didn't expect to like this guy on and off the court to this degree, one who so many considered a late 1st round pick. What seems to be emerging, albeit only 3 games of SL into it, is a guy who accepted a role at Baylor, but who in fact, may indeed have some tools and may have his head on straight sufficient to become special. Still cautious. He "may." He did nothing really to discourage the notion, and a few things to encourage it.

That's good meat to chew on, @Diesel... thanks.

Way too early for me to offer an opinion. I know what I'd like to see happen, but guys have to earn their spots... in particular, it will matter how quickly, if at all, Prince asserts himself.

Is there something beyond having a man-crush, but something less than "can I kiss you?" Cause that's where I am. ;)

Hopefully? Hopefully... not expecting it, given our HC's history, but hopefully... he plays too well to be back-up. Someone has said we need him to be our Leonard, and Bembry to be our Ginobili, and there is some urgency on the former, imo.