somebody post hollingers insider on Belkin

[chillzatl]

and the Hawks saga..

[exodus]

[chillzatl]

Chaos

[exodus]

Updated: June 12, 2006, 6:16 AM ET

Hawks' mess might reshape the free agency landscapeBy John Hollinger

ESPN Insider

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The Hawks are back in a familiar place -- limbo.

For the third summer in a row, it appears the Hawks' offseason quest to improve one of the league's most moribund franchises will take a back seat to the legal wranglings involving the team's fractured ownership group.

The Hawks thought all this was solved last summer, when a process to force out minority owner Steve Belkin began after he defied the other owners and attempted to block the sign-and-trade deal for Joe Johnson. That debate overshadowed their offseason rebuilding efforts, but at least Atlanta came away with Johnson (in exchange for Boris Diaw and two first-round draft picks).

Rule of thumb: Don't turn down a handshake from a guy who might be able to fire you.

A year earlier, the seemingly endless negotiations between the ownership group (known as Atlanta Spirit LLC, it also owns the NHL's Thrashers and Philips Arena) and Time Warner to complete the purchase of the club basically torpedoed Atlanta's free agency hunt. The result was millions in unused salary cap space and a 13-69 disaster that further alienated one of the league's most apathetic fan bases.

Now the ownership fiasco has risen from the dead, thanks to Belkin's lawyers turning the tables on the rest of the Spirit group. In the latest salvo, the consortium suffered a stunning legal setback in a Maryland court on Friday when a judge ruled that Belkin was entitled to buy out the rest of the owners at cost. Barring another legal twist, he's now poisted to take control over the Hawks, the Thrashers and the arena.

In the long term, this might be a good thing for Atlanta, because having a single voice in control of the team will make it much easier to complete deals. Not only would it prevent the raging public disagreement that marred last summer, it would also eliminate the problem of getting several principals scattered up and down the East Coast to sign off on time-sensitive trades.

But in the short term, Friday's ruling will only worsen the uncertainty. The rest of the Atlanta Spirit group is appealing the ruling, and will continue to run things in the meantime. Since the legal process could last throughout the summer or longer, the franchise essentially will be in a holding pattern while waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That leaves Atlanta in a precarious position when it comes to summer deal-making. Players always know when they sign a deal that ownership and management can change, but there's a big difference between knowing that it can change and knowing that it will change, and probably really soon.

Moreover, the Hawks were poised to be an important player in the summer swap market. Atlanta has cap space and a prominent sign-and-trade candidate in forward Al Harrington, and the Hawks have already been rumored in deals for stars such as Indiana's Jermaine O'Neal and Philadelphia's Allen Iverson.

But it's tough to imagine those moves happening now, because the stars and their agents have no idea what's coming around the corner. Nor, for that matter, does the Hawks' front office. If the Belkin ruling is upheld on appeal -- and there's no reason to think it won't be, considering the battle between his lawyers and the Spirit's has been more one-sided than the Tyson-Spinks fight -- his first move is likely to be firing general manager Billy Knight.

Actually, "likely" is perhaps understating things -- it's a near-certainty after Knight's infamous refusal to shake Belkin's hand in a courtroom last summer, which now looms as an even more disastrous career move than drafting Marvin Wiliams ahead of Chris Paul.

(And while we're at it, can we get a ruling from Bill Simmons on where Belkin fits on the Vengeance Scale? If the other owners kick you out and the general manager infamously cold shoulders you during a court hearing, and the trade you protested ends up a turkey because the guy you gave up wins the Most Improved Player Award, and then you spend the next year plotting how to screw them with your lawyers, reclaim ownership the team, and fire the general manager and everybody associated with him, that's gotta be at least an 8.5, right?)

Knight wouldn't be the only casualty, either, as Belkin would be nearly certain to napalm the front office and eliminate anyone suspected of loyalties to the Spirit regime. And once his management team is in place, it stands to reason he'd want to put his own coach in as well.

All that is leading to speculation about whom Belkin might choose to run the team if and when the ruling is upheld. The one name that immediately jumps to the top of the queue is Larry Bird. The Boston-based Belkin has a long relationship with Bird, and the two were partners in a failed bid for the Charlotte expansion franchise. With the Pacers imploding, it wouldn't be a bad time for the Hall of Famer to hunt for the exits. Of course, if Belkin is as frugal with salaries as he was rumored to be in his limited time as a part-owner of the Hawks, Bird might not want to bother.

Regardless of what happens, the one set-piece in Atlanta's offseason that shouldn't be affected is the draft. A rumor making its way around the Finals is that Knight is sold on Duke big man Shelden Williams as his choice with the fifth overall pick. Adding credence to that view are reports that Williams has cancelled workouts with teams choosing after the Hawks, suggesting a promise may already have been made.

But Atlanta already has plenty of young players to develop. The strategy for this summer was supposed to be to bring in some veteran star power to move the team into playoff contention. Instead, the Hawks are looking at getting very little from a summer that was supposed to be crucial to their rebuilding strategy.

Multiply that by three offseasons, and you'll get a good idea why the team's ascent from the depths of the Eastern Conference has been so painfully slow. One can only hope that by this time next year, the ownership situation is finally settled one way or another.