Hawks News (7-25-03)

[HawkTodd]

Addition by subtraction , By dumping contracts, Hawks should turn corner in '05 (7-25-03).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_ga.../07/25/insider/

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Transaction Analysis (Jun. 27-Jul. 24) (7-25-03).

http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_4658.shtml

Of all the teams in this four-team, six-player trade (four of them, to be exact), it’s my opinion that Atlanta makes out the best. While the first-round pick is nice, basically they’ve traded Robinson for nothing, which is a good deal. The value of a player, in its most simplistic, is how much that player is worth on the court (expressed in dollars, which is the hard part) minus his salary. It’s not quite that easy, because a team has to fill roster spots and has to reach the NBA’s minimum salary, meaning a player’s value might be slightly more than what he actually contributes, but that’s a good way of thinking of things. (The value of cap space, incidentally, is best thought of as about zero. In theory, if the free agent market was perfectly efficient, all players signed as free agents would have zero value above and beyond their contracts. Of course, some teams are better at valuing players than others. Those teams do derive positive value from cap space.) Robinson is almost certainly a net negative. The Hawks scarcely missed him when he was injured late last season, actually playing better without him, and he’s due to make over $10 million next year and $12 million the year after that. While the savings from this deal (Brandon, for those of you who have been under a rock, is due to come off the cap in February because of a career-ending knee injury) won’t actively help the Hawks on the court, as they are unlikely to get under the cap before 2005, when Robinson was up anyway, don’t discount its value. The Hawks had one of the league’s highest payrolls last year, and were luxury-tax payers. Considering their mediocre performance (not to mention pitiful attendance and the cost of a failed playoff guarantee), paying the tax makes no sense for the Hawks right now. Yet they would have been over the projected $55 million tax threshold next season had they re-signed Jason Terry. The alternative of not signing Terry, who should come cheap considering his non-interest in the free agent market this summer, was a poor one. Terry is a significantly better player than Robinson and much, much younger.

Where, a year later, does this leave the Hawks’ deal for Robinson in the first place (which, incidentally, I praised in my News@ version of TA)? Financially, the Hawks came out okay. The salary of Toni Kukoc, who they sent to Milwaukee for Robinson, was similar, but his contract was a year shorter. It’s tough to say if the Hawks could have unloaded Kukoc’s contract this year. If they could not, they saved a great deal of money with the trade. The cost – a first-round pick to Milwaukee – turned out to be much higher than the ‘playoff-bound’ Hawks predicted. Atlanta could have added a point guard like T.J. Ford with the pick, though where that would have left them with regards to Terry I’m not sure. It was a bad deal, definitely, but getting a first-round pick and financial relief out of this deal saves it from being as horrible as it could have been.

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Chat wrap: Chad Ford (7-25-03).

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=3796

JP from Jersey: With all of the Spurs recent transactions, is there room for Stephen Jackson? And if not, who is giving him interest?

Chad Ford: His agent, Dan Fegan, said that the Nuggets are interested and a report out of Atlanta today claims that the Hawks might be interested in replacing the Big Dog with Jackson. It's possible that the Spurs could re-sign him, but with Turkoglu and Mercer in the fold, I'm not sure what the point would be.

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Ex-Wizard coach dishes on NBA details and deals (7-25-03).

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=19339

Atlanta was merely dumping salary by acquiring the rights to Terrell Brandon, who will retire due to a career-ending knee injury. A nice little present for the Hawks' new coach, whenever they get around to naming one.

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Glenn Robinson Press Conference Quotes (7-25-03).

http://www.nba.com/sixers/news/robinson_quotes_030725.html

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To Kidd, Mourning is high risk, high reward (7-25-03).

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-heat25jul25,0,2018869.story?coll=sfla-sports-front

Among the latest to express interest in Odom is Atlanta, which has only about $2 million in cap space. The Hawks, however, could work out a sign-and-trade deal, possibly for center Theo Ratliff, whose $10.2 million salary is in line with what Odom is seeking.

The Heat is holding back its remaining salary-cap space, about $11.2 million, instead of pursuing lesser players to fill out its roster.

With Indiana center Brad Miller going to Sacramento in a sign-and-trade transaction, Odom and Hawks guard Jason Terry, also a restricted free agent, are the last remaining top-tier free agents on this summer's market. The Hawks have said they would match all offers for Terry, who has expressed a desire to remain in Atlanta.

In order to bid for a restricted free agent, a team must extend an offer sheet for at least three seasons, which the incumbent team then gets 15 days to match.

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THE DAILY (7-25-03).

http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_4662.shtml

Atlanta - Many people on message boards and in the media across the nation think the Hawks are rebuilding. They look at a trade that sends out a leading scorer for an injured, overpaid point guard, and they say the Hawks have given.

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Done deal: Miller joins the Kings (7-25-03).

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/baske...p-8045415c.html

According to Atlanta Hawks general manager Billy Knight, Petrie, vice president of basketball operations Wayne Cooper and the Kings' ownership must be lauded for pulling off the deal.

"I like Brad Miller," Knight said. "He competes every night. He's a surprisingly good passer for a big man. But to be able to pull off a deal like that, you have to be impressed."

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76ers hope Robinson solves puzzle (7-25-03).

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/...hoperobins.html

You can't blame the whole season on Glenn Robinson," Atlanta's interim general manager, Billy Knight, said. "That's the fault of everyone on the team. They all bear the burden."

Still, the Hawks' record was clearly better without Robinson last season than with him. Atlanta was 9-4 in the 13 games Robinson missed, 26-43 when he played.

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Big Dog hopes for plenty of shots (7-25-03).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketbal...inson_trade_ap/

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Hawks' GM unafraid to make more moves (7-24-03).

http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/ha...03/25hawks.html

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NBA Depth Charts (7-24-03).

http://www.insidehoops.com/nba-depth-charts-central.shtml

ATLANTA HAWKS

Starter Backup

PG Jason Terry(?), Dan Dickau

SG Boris Diaw, Travis Hanson

SF Chris Crawford, Darvin Ham

PF Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Alan Henderson

C Theo Ratliff, Nazr Mohammed