Bankingitbig

The cap stuff is absolutely correct. The cap hold is place holder for this year in terms of salary cap. Any starting salary over that cap hold that Horford signs only impacts us in terms of paying the tax. The story is nice and all, but it doesn't include the fact that we shopped Millsap for mysterious reasons at about the same time as we were negotiating with Horford. If their plan was to play hard ball with Horford and not sign him, then why were they shopping Millsap?

I think most players that are poor free throw shooters in the NBA can make them at a high percentage during practice. These guys just get a mental block when doing it on a live stage in front of thousands. Surprised more teams haven't gotten psychologists for these guys to try and get over their mental blocks.

I just think that if it was owner meddling, then we would have heard about it from Lowe, Windhorst or Arnovitz. Someone would have leaked that Ressler was the one pushing for Dwight.

It didn't matter what we paid Al Horford.. His cap hold was $18M for this coming season. It didn't matter what we paid Al Horford, it was only going to impact our salary cap by $18M. We could have paid him the full 5-year MAX and it still would have only had an $18M impact on the salary. We had his full Bird rights. Again... This is why none of the stuff that unfolded during the offseason makes sense.

But what was he trying to pull off? Have Howard and Horford together and trade Millsap? If that is his plan, then how is he not wise enough to FIRST talk with Horford and let him know "Hey, we are going to sign Howard and want you to play alongside him. How do you feel about that?" This would give him a sense of whether or not the plan would be achievable. Also if this really was his plan.... Would an extra $5M over 5 years really stop him? Was he really that naïve to think Horford would take such a low discount from the 5-year max to stay with Atlanta? Also this doesn't sound like an exec of the year worthy plan... It's a mix of rebuild and get good assets for Millsap, while tying up the future cap with two over 30 year old Centers. Doesn't make sense. And why did it seem like they were scrambling to find trade partners for Millsap? If this was his plan, then he would have known the market for Millsap on July 1st and would have known if this plan was possible.

Brandon Knight has made it known he wants to be a starter. Eric Bledsoe is also starter worthy (better than Schröder). I doubt TWolves want to just thrust Dunn into the starting role right now. Plus each of those guys would require us dumping/trading quite a bit of salary. I also don't think we have the assets to get those guys in a trade unless we throw in first round picks, which I don't think the Hawks want to do.

I think it is pretty fair to say that whatever the Hawks were trying to do this offseason did not go nearly as planned as they wanted. I think it's also fair to say that I think Wilcox is in over his head here and I would not be surprised if he was moved next offseason. I have a glass-half full perspective going into this season on what we can accomplish, but it's pretty easy to see that the moves the Hawks made this offseason with Dwight just don't make sense. Perhaps Ressler had some say about it all and didn't want to go through a full rebuild while the Hawks are in the midst of all this promotional activity, but who knows.

I don't know who we would target for a backup PG that would be available and that would be a "stabilizing" force for Schröder.

Rondo was recruiting Wade to the Bulls. The thing I don't understand is you have no spacing whatsoever when Rondo, Wade and Butler share the court. Plus, these guys are all better with the ball in their hand and as a primary ball handler. It will be interesting to see.

For once I think I actually agree with everything Barkley said... Well almost everything. I think it was the right move to trade Teague, but I do agree that he is underrated.

Delaney is 27years old and has a decent European resume. I think he can come in and be an adequate backup PG from the get go. He just needs to learn the offense, but anybody we bring in would need to do that.

Boston had plenty of cap space to sign Al Horford and didn't need to do a sign-and-trade.

I forgot to list Durant as a free agent as well. I only listed the Eastern Conference all stars in the original post.

To be fair to Al... I'm sure it was something as simple as "Hey IT, what's it like to play for a historic franchise like Boston?"

Completely forgot about this until it just hit me... Only Horford, DeRozan, Gasol and Drummond (RFA) were free agents... Oh and LeBron, but he doesn't really count.

This is petty, but I think the whole Celtic Pride tweet and instantly changing all his Twitter pictures/background was more annoying. It would have been fine if he simply said his thanks to Atlanta then did that other stuff.

Definitely thought the C word was the Celtics coming into this post...

Boston is in for a rude awakening.

As stated in a different thread, I expect our win totals to be fairly the same, maybe a bit less. But I expect a much better performance during the playoffs from this squad. Dennis will light a fire under the squad as the leading PG come playoff time and Howard (if he isn't injured) usually shows up during playoffs unlike Horford.

I expect us to have a fairly similar season as last year in terms of win totals, maybe slightly less. But I expect us to be better during the playoffs.

Al is going to love the passion that Boston's media shows him for his lack of rebounding.

I don't see anything wrong with his latest article here: http://www.peachtreehoops.com/2016/7/2/12086718/nba-free-agency-2016-al-horford-atlanta-hawks-salary-cap?_ga=1.4870707.1671827576.1465334943 We have $70,107,023 in committed cap holds across 13 roster spots, as he states, if we renounce Kirk and Humphries and keep Horford. See below: Paul Millsap 20,072,033 Kyle Korver 5,239,437 Thabo Sefolosha 3,850,000 Dennis Schröder 2,708,582 Tim Hardaway Jr. 2,281,605 Walter Tavares 1,000,000 Mike Muscala 1,015,696 Taurean Prince 1,931,900 Deandre Bembry 1,249,800 Al Horford 18,000,000 Tiago Spliiter 8,550,000 Mike Scott 3,333,334 Lamar Patterson 874,636 He is assuming a salary cap of $94,400,000, which was estimated by Albert Nahmad. This means that dropping Splitter, Scott and THJ would fit Dwight and Baze plus Horford. Math is here: $70,107,023 - $8,550,000 - $3,333,334 - $2,281,605 = $55,942,084 + Dwight $22,488,039 + Kent $15,730,338 = $94,160,461. Alternatively, I believe we could also drop Prince and Patterson instead of THJ in that scenario, but I don't see that as being likely.

I have Baze at $15,730,000 starting salary because of 7.5% raises due to early Bird rights.

Can we not just drop Prince and Splitter to make it work and use our MLE on a back up PG so that we don't get an "incomplete roster charge"? Paul Millsap 20,072,033 Dwight Howard 22,500,000 Kyle Korver 5,239,437 Thabo Sefolosha 3,850,000 Kent Bazemore 15,730,000 Dennis Schröder 2,708,582 Tim Hardaway Jr. 2,281,605 Walter Tavares 1,000,000 Deandre Bembry 1,249,800 Mike Muscala 1,015,696 Al Horford 18,000,000 MLE EXCEPTION 3,477,000 That gets to $93.6M not including the exception, since it won't count against the cap.

Pretty sure we can trade either Thabo or THJ along with Splitter to make enough room. Who do you choose?