The thread for cooler heads

[txsting]

Let this thread be a sunshade from the general freakout malaise that has beset the reset of this board.

Deal with the facts (sprinkled with opinion, no doubt):

1) Childress took a LOT more money to go to Greece. It was reported that this is equivalent to a 3/33 deal here -- $11M per year vs. $7. That's over 50% more money. I don't blame Childress at all, in fact I congratulate him.

2) Childress is the MAN in Europe right now. He has the biggest contract in the league, he will be famous, he will be dat dude. Compare that to his NBA status. Do you still want to blame him? I can't believe all of you flipping Childress the bird on the way out.

3) ASG put a very fair offer on the table. I would not have offered more than 5/35. Would any of you? ASG is not to blame for that contract offer. Yeah, we got blindsided with a situation that has never happened before, but what could they really do? If Childress was unhappy with the way he was treated, or with Woody, that would be one thing, but I defy you to show me the quotes out of his mouth to that effect.

4) We retain his NBA rights. We're a 37 win basketball team. We're not doing anything big right now anyway, with or without him. If we can retain Smoove and backfill Childress, we can still expect to improve while this team matures. Down the road, it may become possible to add Childress back into the fold to help push us over the top - like a seasoned draft pick.

5) We retain his NBA rights. Just thought I should stress this again. Those rights can be traded, or they can result in the return of Childress. They are not without value. You can't say we lost him for nothing. If he signed a 3/33 offer sheet with an NBA team, and we didn't match, then you could say we lost him for no compensation.

6) Childress is NOT irreplaceable on the court! He does a number of good things, but I think we'd do just as well with a 6th man wing who is a 3pt marksman. There are still some good players in this market.

7) We have some payroll flexibility now. Instead of locking up Childress over 5 years, we can offer 2 or 3 year deals to ensure we have more money when we need it for the upcoming negos with JJ, Marvin, and Horford.

[capstone21]

The crappy thing is that Europe is going to screw things up for free agents now. With the teams with cap space scared off we were in a good position.

We have offered an extremely fair deal to Smith with 10 million for 6 seasons. Unfortunately Europe now might make us pay him more then he deserves. However, it is imperative that we either resign him or sign and trade him quickly.

We also need to get in gear and find Childress replacement.

[exodus]

I don't know if I qualify as far as "cool heads" goes but this doesn't bother me at all. Resigning Childress for $7 million/yr would bother me a lot.

[Admin]

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5) We retain his NBA rights. Just thought I should stress this again. Those rights can be traded, or they can result in the return of Childress. They are not without value. You can't say we lost him for nothing.

This still needs clarification but all indications at this point say that we will only retain his rights for 2 years and that's only if we extend the QO to him. If that's true then he comes back to the NBA in 3 years (or maybe he stays in Europe) but we'll have no rights to him.

[capstone21]

I read we can retain his rights for 2 years. He has signed for 3 or more years. He is basically gone now.

[coachx]

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I don't know if I qualify as far as "cool heads" goes but this doesn't bother me at all. Resigning Childress for $7 million/yr would bother me a lot.

I agree with that.

If you start over paying for your 6th man you wake up one morning and say...Oh my Gosh ! We are the NY Knicks.

[capstone21]

He was a key player in our roster but he is the most replaceable out of our top 6 guys.

[txsting]

I would get on the phone to Vujacic's agent this morning. I think he's the best thing out there by far at that position. Maybe an offer of something like 2 years for $8M might steal him, since the Lakers wouldn't match $4 per for Turiaf.

Then, hopefully sign up Kwame and it's not so bad.

I also want to say that I'll miss Chillz' contributions, and I would rather have him than not if he really wanted to be here. He was one of the good guys in the league.

[Swish]

I am not a "cool" head by any means, but I don't think Chills can be totally blamed for taking more money to be the biggest player in the league overseas.

However, I almost totally blame the "Atlanta 'Spirit'" for this. It is not this singular instance, but a whole series of screw ups that have led to disaster.

[capstone21]

I would be very happy if we sign Vujacic. He plays a very simular game as Chilz with only with an outside shot.

[crimedog]

Well Chil leaving isn't the end of the world, we have to act to fill in those minutes but I think we overused Childress as our primary backup and it caused us problems in other places - pushed Marv to PF and played Joe/Chil at PG...

On top of that, I'm not really sure what they could do. I doubt a good SnT was available because other teams would have to know they'd have to match the Euro-team's contract and Chil isn't worth 7m a year and everyone knows it. So the Hawks either had to overpay Childress and hope that somewhere along the line a trade from a team willing to overpay for a bench player became available or let him walk. I'm fine with that decision.

That being said, Sekou reported that the Hawks did not actually put an offer on the table for Josh Smith yet. The only really important thing is getting him signed and if they can't get their act together to do that, well they are in a lot of trouble.

[jhay610]

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I read we can retain his rights for 2 years. He has signed for 3 or more years. He is basically gone now.

Either way, whether we can hold his status as an RFA for more than 2 years or not (which is still undetermined), we don't have his "rights."

You can't trade a player that is not under contract.

[capstone21]

Dennis Scott has reported that there is an offer out there for him.

[hussamga]

Thing is, opportunities arose which could of possibly lead to different deals, SNT or whatever...the important thing is i hope our GM isnt scared to pull the trigger like say Paxson in Chicago and furthermore overreacts to bad situations with bad deals.

I hope Sund doesnt overreact now with a weird trade...