A future first round pick isn't so bad after all.

[wartownrep]

WHy?

Teams with full rosters are always trying to trade out the first round. With our pick we have a piece to trade into the first round(Suns).

[Diesel]

I'm sorry but a future first is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Especially when we make one of our rivals stronger by handing them our 2nd best player from last year.

I say, we just renounce Al and allow Indy to pay him the MLE since they want him and he wants to play for them...

However, to get a future first and say " It's not so bad"... come on. Future firsts suck unless they are unprotected or you're rebuilding. Look around... We're not rebuilding. BK has had 3 shots at the lottery. It's time for us to start arranging players that can help us win something of importance. A lottery pick in 2008 or 2009 doesn't cut it.

[macdaddy]

Reportedly we offered Al something. Was it less than 4 years $36 million? that the Pacers supposedly are offering.

I agree. Why make the Pacers better and we just get a 1st?

[Dejay]

SALARY DUMP. Why are the Hawks so hellbent on helping the Pacers keep their playoff run going when more could be had if they looked at all of their options? I know the free agent market is depressed but a future first-round pick for a 19/7 guy is the best they could do? What will BK get back once the Joshes and MW want to go elsewhere a couple of years from now? Will he get back TWO first-round picks and an option, then?

[OGRat]

Would you resign with the Hawks right now?

[Iman]

I completely disagree. I would rather have a known good player with a reasonable salary that fit our team but otherwise I'd be glad to take a mid to late first rounder for Al. Even if we arent gonna use the pick, it could later be used to trade for a needed player during our future playoff push type years. Just look at the Rasheed deal. Detroit got a great talent basically by giving up a first, we got Josh with the pick. Sounds pretty valuable to me.

As far as making Indy better, I agree that move could possibly keep us outta the playoffs this year or next. But longterm I dont see Al being such a strong player to make much difference. It's even likely, especially given Al's knees seem a little iffy to me, that it's a bad contract the last few yrs of the 6 yr deal.

[y2kenta]

I'm against making them better and only getting a weak@ss pick too, when we could come away with better talent/ exp. contracts + a 1st from our other options. Hell, we probably could have hard-balled DEN out of Camby in a 3-way and made us stonger now without a huge salary hit.

[Johnnybravo4]

I don't get the point of getting expiring contracts. Why spend money on people who aren't good enough to get contracts from you. What would be the purpose of paying millions of dollars to stiffs that won't play and will be let go by the end of the season. We don't need expirers because we are under the cap. We don't need to clear space. We are not the Knicks.

[Nicholasp27]

because they think these mediocre stiffs will get us to the playoffs

many of us don't think so and would rather give our young guys the PT than to trade for expiring stiffs who will drain mins from our future