Sekou: $64M extension being discussed for JJ?

[Diesel]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

[Hawk88]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

He's made the All-Star team twice. And for the Hawks. Yes he is worth it. Is he worth double Marving, yes. I he worth 3x Bibby. Yes

Hawk88

[Admin]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

Is there a link to this somewhere that it's "in the works"?

[ATLNY7]

That would be a good deal if the hawks management can get it done.

[thefloydian]

Is there a link to this somewhere that it's "in the works"?

I think this is as close as you will get: http://twitter.com/sekousmith01

He also mentioned something about it in his blog, but I don't recall him saying anything as strong as "in the works."

[dms269]

If we don't give it to him someone else will.

[coachx]

He's made the All-Star team twice. And for the Hawks. Yes he is worth it. Is he worth double Marving, yes. I he worth 3x Bibby. Yes

Hawk88

Actually he is now a 3 time allstar !

I would say he is definately worth it.

[thefloydian]

I don't think he's really worth it, but considering we wouldn't be able to get anyone better, we have to resign him just to stay competitive.

[DeacKillsaDevil]

I don't know if someone will considering the cap is likely to decrease next ear.

[DrReality]

Sekou's blog:

HAWKSVILLE - If continuity means anything in the NBA these days, the Hawks have done right by their own this summer.

Marvin Williams touched on it last week during a conversation we had the day before he signed his new contract, and again this afternoon in a teleconference with the media to discuss his new deal. A day after my initial talk with Williams, Al Horford and I discussed continuity briefly while he took a break from his work with the Basketball Without Borders program.

Dating back to last summer and extending all the way through training camp this year, the Hawks (if they can come to terms with captain and All-Star Joe Johnson on an extension) will have spent millions to keep their core in place for the foreseeable future.

“I think management is making the commitment to keep us together,” Williams said Tuesday. “And each year we’ve gotten better.”

Josh Smith’s $58 million deal was the first domino, albeit an offer sheet from Memphis to the restricted free agent power forward last summer that the Hawks matched before the ink was dry on the offer sheet. That swift move was followed up this summer with deals for Mike Bibby (3-years, $18 million), Zaza Pachulia (4-years, $19 million) and Williams (5-years, $37.5 million-base). Johnson’s 4-year extension, if signed, would be in the $64 million-range.

Full disclosure, math was never my strongest subject in school. But that’s a lot of cash spent, rightfully, on the heart, soul and guts of your team. Any team dreaming of winning big at the NBA level has to invest in its core or risk vanishing into the ether.

When Hawks center Al Horord talks,in English or Spanish, people tend to listen.

What the Hawks have done is neither groundbreaking nor extraordinary in the world of professional sports. But for a franchise mired in a malaise of mediocrity for the better part of a decade prior to the last 13 months, it’s a pretty impressive feat. ”Obviously, I think it’s pretty important to build on to what we’ve started,” Horford said during our phone conversation last week. And he would know, having played on successful teams every year of his college and professional career to date. “I’m glad Marv got his deal done, because we’re going to need all our guys back and ready to go this season.”

By no means does this excuse the Hawks from the responsibility of filling out the roster with quality players capable of supporting that core group. But it certainly helps that the core is in place right now - a nucleus with three wildly talented youngsters in Horford, Williams and Smith. That would be a heck of a core group by itself. So to have JJ, Bibby, Zaza, rookie Jeff Teague and even Jamal Crawford to add to the list makes the list that much more impressive. It’ll look even better with the addition of a name like Joe Smith, still in the works according to some well-placed sources that insist the Hawks won’t give up until someone pries Smith from their dead claws.

Will it win a championship in a league where the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers have stockpiled elite talent to go around Kobe Bryant and the Boston Celtics have assembled a star-studded army to battle the Lakers, Cleveland and Orlando for supremacy? No way. But the same can be said for solid young teams in places like Portland and Chicago as well. That’s just the reality of the situation.

What a rock-solid core does is give the Hawks a fighting chance to be relevant now and into the future. And despite cries for titles (things, mind you, that Hawks fans have never experienced) relevancy is the tangible goal that all teams must focus on before moving into championship mode.

Having witnessed my favorite team’s lone championship season of my lifetime (scroll down to the bottom, it’s there, I swear), I can sympathize with the desire to shed the middle ground for the higher ground. Having witnessed that championship season also made it painfully clear to me just how rare those occasions are, even when you have seemingly all the resources in the world at your disposal, that your squad actually cashes in on the big prize.

Would I trade 40 years of rooting for a a competitive or even upper-tier team for one title? Absolutely. But if I can get both, even if the titles only come once every 50 years, I’m not turning that down either. Back to my original point, and I apologize for swerving off course a bit but it is football season (and I smell a comeback season cooking in Ann Arbor), it all comes down to perspective for me.

Is it more important to be relevant and potentially a true player or not? I say stay relevant (given whatever constraints might be in place, and it’s no secret the Hawks have many) as long as you can. We’ve all seen the flip side and it’s ugly, real ugly.

Where the Hawks fit in the grand scheme of things depends on your perspective, as well. If being the fourth team in a three-team Eastern Conference race doesn’t strike you, that’s understandable. And they will have challenger for that fourth spot. But they certainly seems sure of themselves.

“I feel like people are obviously starting to respect our ball club,” Williams said during his teleconference. “People realize they are not going to come into Atlanta and get an easy win. I don’t think anybody in the league is doing that anymore. We’ve shown the last few years we can compete with anybody in the league. We certainly feel like we can compete with anybody in the league.”

[thefloydian]

What's Joe Smith have to do with this thread?

[bird_dirt]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

that is a lot, but he was already getting 14-15 a year, and he would definately seek a raise for the prime time of his career. like another poster said, if we didn't give it to him, another team would easily. i think it's fairly reasonable considering i was reading less than a year ago speculation of him seeking/getting 18 a year from whomever lost out on lbj and wade at 20+ a year. then the cap went down.....but 16 is good, it's a raise, giving him some props for a good job, but not an insanely overpriced raise.

i really feel with such a young team, it's a huge benefit for them to stay and grow together. they will get better. they have been getting better, and they will continue to do so. marv and smoove are signed fairly reasonably, and joe is too, so at the worst, they should be easy trading chips in a couple years.

[frankthetank966]

If we don't give it to him someone else will.

Thats the truth. If we don't offer him the money then a team like the Bobcats or even Knicks will offer it to him.

[Traceman]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

I would consider a 4 yr/$64M extension for a 3 time All Star SG in the prime of his career to be a bargain.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Traceman

[WraithSentinel]

We can pencil the Knicks in as one of those teams that will throw everything at JJ once they lose out on everyone else. They have been building for this offseason for years now. To come up empty handed is not going to sit well with Knicks fans. Granted I do give them a 1% chance of landing Lebron James assuming Lebron can take a min to get his head out of his own @$$ and to quit watching replays of himself. Then King Ego might listen.

[jerrywest]

Thats the truth. If we don't offer him the money then a team like the Bobcats or even Knicks will offer it to him.

If ASG doesn't sign Joe, Hawks can't sign comparable replacement.

If Joe doesn't sign, he has other options.

[Plainview1981]

16 per.

That's a lot.

If you believe Sekou, that's what's in the works.

The immediate question is... is Joe worth it.

I guess so. I think he's a star SG and he locks up our SG position for the next 5 years. Sund will have his hands full.

The questions that are asked is IS our Core good enough to win? That remains to be seen.

16 million a year for 5 years? With the way things are going in the economy I bet he'll sign that.

Paying. It would be different if JJ's play had been better the last 2 seasons. But he hasn't shown the explosiveness that he had the half season he average 25PPG and shot 47%.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Hotlanta1981

[AHF]

16 million a year for 5 years? With the way things are going in the economy I bet he'll sign that.

For 4 years. He is being paid $15M this season so this amounts to a $16M/year average over 4 years.

[JTB]

$64m sounds reasonable to me...................GET IT DONE SUND!!!!!!!!! SO WE CAN FOCUS ON OTHER ISSUES..............LIKE SIGNING A BACKUP BIG

[Plainview1981]

For 4 years. He is being paid $15M this season so this amounts to a $16M/year average over 4 years.

With his seemingly decline in play and overall poor performances I can't see giving a 5 year deal. 4 doesn't sound quite as bad, but given his performance in the playoffs it's hard to see him being a 16 million per year player. It's pretty tough... You can't lose him for nothing, but you can't cap your team out on a guy that under performs in the playoffs.

Edited August 13, 2009 by Hotlanta1981