Purchase for Hawks almost complete

[Hawksman]

David McDavid expressed confidence Friday that his deal to buy the Hawks, Thrashers and Philips Arena operating rights from AOL Time Warner will be completed soon.

"We think the deal is practically done," McDavid said from his Fort Worth home. "We are at what I would call the 'ticking and tying' stage now . . . working out the details."

As for predicting when the deal will be finished, McDavid said: "Tell you the truth, we are at such a close stage, I'm a very poor guesser. It could be as early as the first of July, or it could be mid-July, but I think it's going to happen very quickly."

Since McDavid signed a letter of intent on April 30 to buy the teams and the Philips rights from AOL for $350 million to $400 million, lawyers -- his in Pittsburgh and AOL's in New York -- have been negotiating a definitive final agreement.

During these 7 1/2 weeks, according to people familiar with the process, numerous issues have had to be worked through, typically with multi-million dollar ramifications. Much time also has been devoted to due diligence work on McDavid's behalf.

"It just grinds you down," McDavid said of the process.

The Texas auto dealer had hoped to complete the deal by June 14, when, under terms of the letter of intent, his exclusive negotiating period with AOL expired. However, he and the company verbally agreed to continue exclusive negotiations.

McDavid said he has been "covered up" with correspondence from people who want to work for the Hawks and Thrashers, "but we're in a posture where we can't do anything, can't talk to anybody" until the deal is completed and approved by the NBA and NHL.

[DXS]

Already posted it. It is good news. Hopefully we can come out of hibernation soon and start actually acting as we care about the upcoming season. -dxs

[DJ_Money]

It's too late.

NBA Draft: June 26th

Deadline to offer the qualifying offer to JT and Glover/Teams may begin talking to Free Agents: July 1st

Teams may begin signing Free Agents: July 15th

It doesn't matter now if this deal is done in two weeks or two months.

Knight is making decisions on the draft without the input of our head coach. If the coach is going to bake the cake, shouldn't he be the one to shop for the ingredients? We don't know what our next coach wants to do with this team. Do we want to run, play a motion offense, run the pick-and-roll, play off Shareef, play off Robinson, run a full court press, etc, etc., etc.

Same thing goes for the FA signing period. And God help this team if we let JT walk for nothing.

[KB21]

.....it will more than likely involve some form of sign and trade with Jason Terry that will be official on July 15th when teams can start negotiating with free agents.

I can see Atlanta making a move that sends Terry to Seattle for the 12th pick in principle, with some salary considerations thrown in on Seattle's part, and possibly a future pick involved as well.

I could then see the Hawks making that deal to jump ahead of Memphis to select your boy, Aleksander Pavlovic.

[DJ_Money]

...but I honestly can't see us trading JT (or anybody, for that matter) on draft night.

I don't think Knight has the power to pull off a trade right now. AOL doesn't want anybody "tampering" with the team before it can be officially turned over to McDavid. Which is why I fear July 1st will roll around and JT and Glove will be unrestricted Free Agents.

I'd like to see us trade up to somewhere around #12, but what do we have to give?

Seattle's players that come to mind when you talk trade are Barry and James. Barry is the guy we've wanted to play with JT, what's the point in getting him if we have to give up JT? He's 31, so he's obviously not going to be part of a rebuilding process.

It would be nice if we could trade Nazr/Dickau for James/#12, but then, I'm not taking Pavlovic. I'd take Barbosa at that spot.

[Diesel]

Terry/#21 to Seattle

For Radmonivich/#12/#14?

Actually, it makes sense, but it doesn't follow the pattern that we have been following.

I think we will trade for an established PG.

[TheDude]

those were some good points dj money that i didn't think about...

good post by the way, i didn't know the time frame...

with july 1st being the first available time, that would seem to be too late...but i thought about it and even though he says everyone's been contacting him about working for him (which is excellent news, sounds like the new Falcons organization already) and he says he can't talk, it would still seem he may be giving a hint or two to billy knight and/or Stotts....

he's got to..he may have already decided to keep them both and that's still why you see billy working hard...i say he'd still pull the trigger on a draft day trade, knowing his future boss would approve..aol would be a little more harder to convince but sc.rew it.

BUT PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE, I keep hearing these trades to give out jt, reef, and grob...while i have no problem with wanting to trade them(especially Glen "The Stationary Catch-And-Shoot" Robinson), you're proposing to give them up for nothing...two of them are up and coming allstars and one is good for stats...we can get waaay more than some midround pick and a bench player..remember we gave a 3rd pick away for reef and he's not shabby..he just hasn't brought us to the promise land(and honestly, i don't think any of it is his fault) but he's still a bada.ss....

[Guest]

and we thought we were giving away, essentially, damaged goods and non-lotto pick for robinson...that's what we thought.

As for the worries about JT, you guys can't be serious. I mean, yeah, we'll throw out the qualifying offer so he won't be a urFA, and then, once the ownership/coaching thing is settled, couldn't we up that offer to a lt contract if it were the wishes of the mgt? You know he's probbaly recieved at least the qualifying offer....

[Traceman]

received the qualifying offer as of yet. I have to tell you that REALLY concerns me although I still expect he will get the qualifying offer prior to July 1. I think the team is likely going to wait until after the draft in order to make a decision on qualifying offers for JT and Glover. At least I HOPE that is the plan.

As for your plan, yes, we COULD offer to sign JT to a larger contract after July 15, so long as we offer him the qualifying offer by July 1. I just assumed that the plan all along with JT was to extend the qualifying offer and let him field offers from other teams. Assuming he doesn't get any outrageous offers, we match any offers he gets or try to sign him to a longer term deal.