Should the Hawks cave on the 3 million dollars?

[Diesel]

If the deal is Al/Edwards for Unprotected first... Should the Hawks let INDY Slide with the 3 million dollars cash? Or is BK doing the right thing by sticking to his guns on three million dollars?

[GST]

Getting an unprotected 1st round pick out of a situation where we barely have any leverage would be a win in my book.

[skyhawk]

No. We still have the leverage. Add that 3m to the 1m we get for Edwards salary and we're looking at money for another player. Do we know for sure that the pick is unprotected??

[pimp]

I wonder if there is a way that indiana could give us 2 million this year and 1 million in 2007?

[Diesel]

The 3 million isn't cap money. It goes into our owners bank account.

[Johnnybravo4]

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The 3 million isn't cap money. It goes into our owners bank account.

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Well technically cap money is money in the owner's bank account also, they aren't playing with Monopoly money you know. In essence, they want Indiana to pay for our next FA acquisition.

[skyhawk]

Exactly. Which in my mind is almost as if they're sending us another player.

[Wurider05]

They need that money to fight Belkin's takeover attempt. Damn greedy lawyers!!!!

[Watchman]

Our owners spend some money? You gotta be kidding.

[Spiral]

I guess my question is, when did money become such an issue to our ownership group? We have the 3rd lowest payroll in the league. I mean wasn't our owners bragging not too long ago that they had plenty of money. Some kind of quote saying they had more money than Arthur Blank or something like that. It's not like the 3 million is effecting the cap number. It simply goes right back into our owners pockets. Does anyone think that the 3 million dollars would be a point of contingency if our ownership wasn't a mess?

[skyhawk]

Maybe it is an issue of the owners needing the money but the real question is - is this a fair deal? If the Spurs or some other team were in our position we'd all be applauding them for trying to make such a good deal.

[Nicholasp27]

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Our owners spend some money? You gotta be kidding.

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?

we were almost at the cap last year

we paid big time for jj

we paid decent money for speedy and made a nice offer to cassell

we made a max offer to kmart

etc etc

they are willing to spend money

[TheDude]

2.5 million.

[DrReality]

My question is how much has it cost the organization from all the bad press, public relations, etc. It's hard to put a $$$ figure on it, but we've taken a beating in the press. Seems very short sighted to me. When they sit down to do their ad campaign this year and have to overcome the bad press, seems to me that 3 million is a drop in the bucket.

Go figure.

[Diesel]

Well, it's league money and it's personal money.

If we were over the cap, the 3 million wouldn't make one bit of difference. That's my point. It may indeed help us afford to pay JJ or something like that, but when we are at the point where we can't afford to play payers... that's a bad thing.

[ggp]

Realistically, how important is it to protect the first round pick? If Indy adds Harrington, they should have little or no problem staying out of the lottery.

So what are they after?

[Diesel]

I wonder how much is of this battle is over principle and how much is need.

I have shown that Indy has two of the richest owners in the NBA. They have 3 times as much money as Cuban and that's saying alot and they give more money to charity than this 3 million dollar investment.

Our owners are an enigma?

Are we the broke franchise of the NBA?

Did they really need Belkin to make the money part work??

These are some questions that have to be addressed. Because if Atlanta Spirit - Belkin cannot afford the team, then Atlanta Spirit doesn't have to worry about court... they will have to worry about Stern just stripping the franchise. Right now as we sit, I think that's probably the best remedy... Strip the franchise and put it back up for Sale.

Maybe they put it back up for sale and somebody who knows nothing about Basketball (Anne Cox Chambers) can buy it.... then she can put all Hawks games on Cox Communications!

Or maybe Ted Turner!

[Diesel]

Security is what they are after.

last year, Oneal got hurt.

What if injuries strikes 2 of their stars... They don't really have the depth to be that good in a stronger east.

Everybody is shunning NY for trading an unprotected pick to Chicago.

Well, this is somewhat the same kinda situation.

Plus, i think its a pissing contest and the Pacers know how far BK can piss already.

[DJlaysitup]

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Realistically, how important is it to protect the first round pick? If Indy adds Harrington, they should have little or no problem staying out of the lottery...

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Agreed gman...hoping to get into the lottery with Indy's unprotected pick is a pipe dream in my opinion. Of course there is always the chance of injuries so you can't totally count it out.

Still, it looks like INDY is setting up to have a pretty happy front line with AL at the 3, JO at the 4, and enough depth to fill the 5 decently. They should do well.

[Guest]

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we were almost at the cap last year

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No, we still had PLENTY of cap space last year. We weren't even close.

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etc etc

they are willing to spend money

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Yeah, UP TO the cap and thats it.