Hawks' salary update (08.07.06)

[mrhonline]

Here's the current situation. As you can see, the Hawks are right at the salary cap. (It appears that either a.)they left themselves with 100K under the cap or b.)my numbers are off by 100K). I'll update things once the Harrington S&T is completed.

ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>ALIGN=RIGHT>

Player	2006-2007	2007-2008	2008-2008	2009-2009
Johnson	12.74	13.49	14.23	14.98
Harrington	10.43
Claxton	6.85	6.31	5.76	5.21
M. Williams	4.17	4.47	5.64
Pachulia	4.00	4.00	4.00
Lue	3.50	3.50
S. Williams	2.95	3.17	3.40	4.30
Childress	2.86	3.63
Smith	1.46	2.24
Edwards	1.08
Stoudamire	0.74	0.78
Jones	0.74	0.78
Ivey	0.74
Batista	0.74
Total	53.03	42.37	33.02	24.49
Actual $	39.28	39.38	30.29	21.98

I have added a final total line for actual wages being paid out to the players (as opposed to their actual cap hit, which is different for some players). I think this is interesting in light of JJ's frontloaded contract.

[Final_quest]

Do we have a team option on Lue after this season?

[mrhonline]

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Do we have a team option on Lue after this season?

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It's not being reported as such. I imagine the Hawks gave Lue a deal comparable to the one the Lakers were offering.

If there is one, it would be nice in case the Hawks wanted to sign a near-max free agent next season.

[txsting]

Thanks for putting that together. Would you please put the salary cap number in there as well? I know we don't know it for future years, but perhaps we could guess at it in order to look down the road.

If we're going to be contenders, it'll probably be 2008, so we'll want to pay close attention to what it will cost to resign Childress and Smoove. I'll just go ahead and assume that they will be part of the team since it's impossible to know otherwise at this point.

I think, along with several other posters here, that we will have to plug in a serious 2-way big man at some point in order to start contending. I really think our backcourt and wings will be special in 2 years. We'll need $10 mil plus to get that big - are we going to have room to make a deal like that?

[gsuteke]

if the Hawks are at the cap with Harrington's hit per that table it has large ramifications on who the Hawks can trade with and still sign Lorenzon.

it looks like they can only take on 7.4 million dollars in contracts and still be able to sign Wright to a 3 million dollar deal.

can the Hawks be that close to the cap?

[CBAreject]

I think our chance to get that big probably passed us by when we never could get lucky in the lottery. Kaman is the only option left for us, and he's solid, but not great.

[Guest]

Awesome. Can we please get this stickied?

[Guest Walter]

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I think our chance to get that big probably passed us by when we never could get lucky in the lottery. Kaman is the only option left for us, and he's solid, but not great.

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We have a better shot at getting Bynum than Kaman. We don't even have to convince Bynum or overpay him to pry him from LAC's cold, dead hands. We don't have to heavily commpensate LAC to get him should we convince Kaman to sign with us. We simply have to offer talent that will never play another game for us in Al and another who as a forced BU at Sg and 3rd string Sf for us probably won't play anymore than he has to. We only have to convince LA and we already would have Phil and Kobe on our side. Kupcake is the only individual that would have to be convinced from all indications and it's hard to say "no" to the zen master.

W

[Guest]

The more I like it for both sides. For one, Speedy is getting more value out of the contract with the pay decreases than with pay increases (assuming it would have paid the same amount of $ over 4 years). So if Speedy invests well, he is better off with this than with a regular 8% raise contract. And also the contract helps the team especially when it comes to extensions for the young guys because it will conserve cap space and we won't be as close to the luxury threshold.

[Lascar78]

not to mention that it makes him easier to trade if you want to, because there'll be less $$$ left on the contract

[AHF]

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The more I like it for both sides. For one, Speedy is getting more value out of the contract with the pay decreases than with pay increases (assuming it would have paid the same amount of $ over 4 years). So if Speedy invests well, he is better off with this than with a regular 8% raise contract. And also the contract helps the team especially when it comes to extensions for the young guys because it will conserve cap space and we won't be as close to the luxury threshold.

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I agree that is very nice to see. This team has done some nice things in structuring contracts for the future. If they were only interested in saving $$, they wouldn't frontload JJ's deal or Speedy's like they have. Good stuff.

[txsting]

Bynum is a risk, we don't really know what he can do, but I would certainly be on board. Look around the league for other young centers with potential that are attainable and your eyes will grow tired. We don't have any help coming in the draft, unless Al could bring back a high pick next year (little chance).

Bottom line: what we have now, even at maturity in a few years, doesn't seem like enough to contend for a title.

It does seem like a good time for us to move, having Al as a key piece for the deal. If it would only cost Childress, who is buried on our roster, it's worth it. But if the move (Bynum, for example) is not there, we don't have to force it - we will have another, maybe better opportunity next year.

By the end of this season, we'll know a lot more about Smoove and Marvin, and hopefully we'll be looking at a situation where both players are obviously highly valuable. If so, we can dangle one of them like a diamond (either one will be much more valuable than Al) in a serious play to get the kind of guy we need. We will also have several other very tradeable pieces to use to construct a deal (Chillz, Zaza, Lo, Slim, '08 first, rights to our foreign players, et al). We'll also have our Al cap-room hopefully, but I'm not going to assume we can attract the kind of player we'll need in FA. We got lucky with JJ, not likely to happen again.

So - if we get Bynum for the right deal great. Otherwise don't force it, let's deal with Indy and stay flexible, continue to mature our promising core, and get another tradeable asset back while we continue to look for the "BIG ONE".

[gsuteke]

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=554348

the Laker board is split on this deal. that tells me we're not out of our minds here speculating on this deal.

[AtLaS]

Even tho Speedy's contract is frontloaded, doesnt the cap hit still increase every year?

Like JJ was supposedly paid $20 million the first year but the cap hit started at 12 and increases although JJ's pay is actually decreasing..

[KB21]

Getting a dominant big man, though, is not the key to winning in today's NBA. The lack of quality big men that are available just gives you an overview of the situation as a whole. There simply aren't many good big men in the NBA or in college. This is why teams are either going with undersized guys like Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, and Dwight Howard at the center position, or they are spanning the globe in an attempt to find the next great international center.

If you don't have a dominant big man, the next best thing is to either have a solid rotation of big men or to simply play small ball. At this point, those are the only choices. A GM will kill himself if he starts looking for the perfect big man.

[Guest]

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Even tho Speedy's contract is frontloaded, doesnt the cap hit still increase every year?

Like JJ was supposedly paid $20 million the first year but the cap hit started at 12 and increases although JJ's pay is actually decreasing..

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No, there are three types of frontloaded contracts. 1) a contract that contains a signing bonus. 2) the contract has decreasing value. You could also have a contract with both.

1) The signing bonus is spread throughout the cap hits, but paid upfront. The signing bonus can be worth up to 20% of compensation. This is how it is for JJ, the cap hits are actually more than what he is getting paid in years 2-5 of his deal.

2) You can either raise by 8%, decrease by 8%, or anything in between from your initial salary (10.5% with Bird rights). These are simple raises/decreases. For Speedy, his contract decreases by 8% each year (not compounded), his cap hit also decreases by the same amount each year.

3) In this case, it is a little more confusing. It depends on how big the signing bonus is and how big decreases are. This could go either way in terms of cap hits decreasing/increasing.

[mrhonline]

The cap is 53.135, for whoever asked. I'll add it to the next post.

Also, if any of the mods have the power, can you change the dates at the top? It should read 2008-9 and 2009-10 instead of 2008-8 and 2009-9.

[tmac13]

Teams with dominant bigmen have won 7 of the last 8 NBA championships..

[skyhawk]

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Teams with dominant bigmen have won 7 of the last 8 NBA championships..

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I have to disagree with that as Shaq's LA Lakers were the only team in the last 7 years to win a championship with a truly dominant big man. Tim Duncan is a great player who can dominant a game but he's more of a hypbrid PF. Ben Wallace dominant? A great defensive player but not a dominating bif. The Heat? D-Wade was the dominant player in that series and IMHO, they were a better team with Mourning on the floor..and I wouldn't consider him to be a domninant big man either.

The one thing these teams have in common is a strong defensive presence in the middle - something which doesn't require a dominant big man.

The game is definitely evolving to having athletic PFs play center as the days of the traditional "big" man are over.

Can you name a dominating big man that's playing today?

[Packfill]

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Teams with dominant bigmen have won 7 of the last 8 NBA championships..

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I have to disagree with that as Shaq's LA Lakers were the only team in the last 7 years to win a championship with a truly dominant big man. Tim Duncan is a great player who can dominant a game but he's more of a hypbrid PF. Ben Wallace dominant? A great defensive player but not a dominating bif. The Heat? D-Wade was the dominant player in that series and IMHO, they were a better team with Mourning on the floor..and I wouldn't consider him to be a domninant big man either.

The one thing these teams have in common is a strong defensive presence in the middle - something which doesn't require a dominant big man.

The game is definitely evolving to having athletic PFs play center as the days of the traditional "big" man are over.

Can you name a dominating big man that's playing today?

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Dude, if Tim Duncan is not a dominating big man then I don't know who is.

Fact of the matter is no team has one a championship in recent years without an allstar caliber big man.