Bibby trade shows us a lot

[txsting]

If this is the best deal available to us, we have to do it. There are so many positives here it's hard to list them all.

1) it doesn't cost us much of long term consequence (mostly expirings)

2) it proves BK is willing to trade one of his own draft picks (Shelden)

3) it shows that ASG can and will spend money. huge right there. this doesn't surprise me anyway, but it should speak directly to a few of you.

4) it makes me more confident that we will resign our core. It is illogical to think that we would do this deal instead of taking care of Josh Smith. If you think that, you are being paranoid. Again, really you can't point to anything ASG has done that would make you think we have to be cheap. I've tried to show you in recent posts that the negative financial situation is overblown.

5) Bibby makes good money (13M), but there's only 1.5 years left on that deal. We retain flexibility, and if it doesn't work out on the court, we're not significantly hurt. He's only 29 today. He will be a valuable trade piece next year. I don't go into this really expecting it is a long-term move, or "this completes us". I think this is a move that helps us win now, and gives us some big flexibility next year. We will have options, including keeping Bibby if it REALLY works. If we decide to move him, he will be attractive to many teams, both as a rent-a-player, and a BIG expiring contract. Think of it this way - we're sliding our expiring money into 2009, and in the meantime we get a nice PG. Nice.

6) This significantly improves our playoff chances. Even a rusty Bibby is a big upgrade.

7) We've got our shooter.

8) We've got a guy who we would actually like Law to learn from. Law should be able to get 15-25 minutes a game on a much more consistent basis now.

9) This will tighten up our big man rotations. At the very least, Zaza and Solomon should get their minutes much more regularly. Hopefully that will pay off with better play from them.

In sum: this isn't the all-everything trade to complete the team, but it extracts serious value from our expiring deals, while costing us nothing in core.

Congratulations Hawks fans. Good day for us.

[pimp]

It showed that BK's job was really in danger, and that knew he had to make a move to keep us in the playoff race.