Man, this hurts to read.

[Brotha2ThaNite]

What I highlighted is what I thought was over, we would never hear words like those again, after game 6 against Boston. I think it is finally setting in I want get to see the Fro in a Hawks uni.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/stor...ge=Hawks-080723

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Childress' move to Greece hurts Hawks on many levels

After the Hawks came back to beat the Lakers in a late-season game last spring, one of the team's myriad owners sidled up to a fellow reporter, beaming, and said, "We have arrived."

It appears it was a brief stay.

The departure of Josh Childress to Greek squad Olympiakos, first reported by Sekou Smith in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a crushing blow to the franchise on multiple levels. First and foremost, obviously, it deprives them of one of the best sixth men in the game, a guy who could make a huge impact without needing any plays run for him because of his ability to attack the glass, score in transition and play off the ball.

It also leaves them scrambling to fill out the roster, with most of the offseason's top free agents already claimed by other teams. Atlanta has only eight players under contract at the moment, and two of them (oft-injured Speedy Claxton and oft-inactivated Solomon Jones) barely count. Even if the team can re-sign Josh Smith, the Hawks are still paper thin.

But the real damage here isn't immediately visible. Nothing could do more to perpetuate the Hawks'

standing as one of the league's worst-run organizations

than to have a player they desperately wanted to keep bolt for another continent.

The stink from that will linger long into the future, affecting other free agents' decisions to join the Hawks and/or remain with them, until there comes a time when the organization can prove it has its act together.

That day seems a long way off.

Look,

good organizations just don't screw up like this.

They stay in touch with free agents -- they make sure the player knows he's wanted and it's just a question of finding the price, and they lay the groundwork far ahead of time by operating in a first-class manner.

On that level, the fact that Childress didn't think twice about leaving -- and that Josh Smith seemingly would gladly pack his bags too -- speaks volumes about the management.

So does the fact that Atlanta is among NBA players' favorite cities to visit, and yet nobody wants to play here.

And it's not like Childress woke up on July 1 with a craving for tzatziki and an iPod full of Yanni tunes. He's a smart, cultured guy and he'll do fine over there, but going abroad wasn't his most preferred option.

He was pushed into this position when the Hawks first didn't extend him a year ago, and then followed that up by not making a strong enough initial offer to him in free agency.

Atlanta essentially overplayed its hand,

thinking that Childress, as a restricted free agent, didn't have any other options but to take the Hawks' offer for a bit above the midlevel exception. But Childress and agent Lon Babby recognized that the increased power of the euro has made going overseas a real option for all but the most expensive of the league's players, and found a way around restricted free agency by signing a lucrative three-year deal in Greece -- one that has opt-outs after each season that could allow him to return to the NBA.

By screwing this up, the Hawks also popped their own balloon from the seven-game run against Boston in the first-round of the playoffs.

That series featured a shocking sight -- an incredibly loud, involved, borderline intimidating Philips Arena crowd that gave the Hawks their first legitimate home-court advantage in ages.

In that series, it appeared the team had finally turned the corner in reaching what had been a notoriously apathetic fan base. Losing Childress deflates much of the enthusiasm from that run, especially since the Hawks have signed exactly zero players in free agency thus far. One wonders if the team even had a contingency plan in place in the event that Childress left, or if it's a fire drill over at Centennial Tower today.

Obviously, this signing has implications beyond the Hawks. Already this summer we've seen Juan Carlos Navarro, Tiago Splitter, Bostjan Nachbar, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Loren Woods, Primoz Brezec and Carlos Delfino say no thanks to the NBA because they got better money from a team overseas; by the end of the summer we may be saying the same about several others.

The only difference in Childress' case is that he's American and his deal was for even more money than the others (Nachbar also got some major dough, incidentally). So Childress may become a pioneer in terms of restricted free agents working around the system.

So in the long term, then, the big winner in this development likely will be future restricted free agents. In the short term, perhaps the winner is Josh Smith. With the Hawks still wiping the mud off their faces, they're certainly more motivated to reach a deal with him fairly quickly and get some good news out there. And if his agent starts throwing around hints that teams in Europe are willing to meet Smith's price, the Hawks are likely to take the threat much more seriously than they did with Childress.

And while there are ways for the Hawks to try to undo some of the damage from this -- such as making a run at former local high school star and restricted free agent Louis Williams --

nothing in their track record says they're capable of pulling it off.

That Childress so improbably slipped from their grasp only cements that impression.

[hawkman]

Nice article. I can't help but agree that this makes the Hawks look bad. A lot of people want to blame Childress, but there's plenty of blame to go around. What this tells me is that Childress is smarter than our executives. They thought that they could play hardball with him with the whole take it or leave thing. It never dawned on them that they were dealing with a different kind of person than what they were used to. Childress will do great overseas and I'm sure he will enjoy this new experience. He was a good player AND a good person. I wish him the best.

[Dejay]

Bingo. That's been my point the entire day.

We all know that Childress isn't worth the $$$ that Greece is raining on him. But that won't fly with prospective free agents worth their salt (sorry, but Quinton Ross don't count), let alone guys on the roster who's contracts are coming up (JJ, Bibby, Marvin, Horford). Can you imagine what JJ's negotiations are going to be like with this bunch? Or Horford's? What Marvin's going to be thinking about going into his contract year?

Stuff like this certainly won't fly with fans who were fully expecting this team to make a move or two and possibly be a contender after the Boston series (and nope, bringing back Jeremy Richardson and Mario West won't get it done). Even the Clips didn't get dissed by Elton Brand like the Hawks just did with Childress.

The fact that he couldn't wait any longer on this bunch to move and decided that leaving the continent would be a better option (for much more $$$, I'll grant you that) says a lot more about this franchise than a lot of us are willing to admit.

[Wurider05]

Good point. I was just telling someone today that Chillz never came across as the ignorant thug type (like most of the NBA). He seems to be really educated. It was a reason why they chose him in Greece.

[DrReality]

He nailed it. Elephant in the living room. and ASG have to be in a lot of pain.

Atlanta essentially overplayed its hand . . . . . what hand?

[Brotha2ThaNite]

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Nice article. I can't help but agree that this makes the Hawks look bad. A lot of people want to blame Childress, but there's plenty of blame to go around. What this tells me is that Childress is smarter than our executives. They thought that they could play hardball with him with the whole take it or leave thing. It never dawned on them that they were dealing with a different kind of person than what they were used to. Childress will do great overseas and I'm sure he will enjoy this new experience. He was a good player AND a good person. I wish him the best.

You know what is SSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO FUNNY?!?!

Is that Chill's agent (one man *maybe*) out thought the ASG (multiple men) LOL

[hawkman]

What's strange is that I would have done the same thing if I felt that I was being disrespected at my job and another more lucrative job came along. I'm sure many of us would. At the end of the day, Chillz is a man first and was not going to be forced into a situation he didn't like when another ideal situation was right there for the taking. The Hawks thought that he didn't have any other options and tried to play hardball with him. It appears that things weren't very cordial either. So he took the road less traveled based on principle rather than tuck tail and work in a difficult situation where he didn't feel respected. I can understand and respect that.

[Lacsho]

he nailed that article!!!! While the ASG and Belkin are Every other team in the league is getting better. Damn they make it hard to support the home team.

[LOL_Hawks]

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Good point. I was just telling someone today that Chillz never came across as the ignorant thug type (like most of the NBA). He seems to be really educated. It was a reason why they chose him in Greece.

He's from Stanford, they don't accept idiots, even the athletes.

That said, I guess it was Chill's dream to be abroad, so it's good for him. If that's his dream, and he had an opportunity to grab it, why should we be mad at him?

We should be mad at the Hawks organization though. They said that their priority was signing the Joshes. Well, they're halfway on the way to failing to accomplish their primary goal of the offseason. -sigh- Same ol Hawks.