Joe Johnson is not a max player

[bballfan]

First Kenyon Martin and now Joe Johnson?

Come on you can't really think these guys are max deal players?

How many years are our rookie deals for Smith and Childress?

We should take into consideration having to re-sign them too.

[CBAreject]

...but he's not that far off, and it will take every bit of a max deal to get him here. I'm divided on it, but I think I'm leaning toward the side of offering him the deal. Far worse players with less upside have been given grosser deals than what we will offer JJ. You have to remember we'll have him for the duration of his prime. That means a lot.

The trouble with all this talk of 'not a max player' that surrounds various FA's every year is that the NBA FA market is by no means a perfect one. Now, if every player were a FA at the same time, then we might be able to say to Joe Johnson, 'you are not a max player...we would rather pay max dollars to Lebron James.' Trouble is, there are only a few players available every year, and the bidding for those players is driven by the shortage of such players, not the actual value of those players. There's always plenty of demand, but supply is a biatch.

[Guest Walter]

Unless he is a sure-fire Pg for us I hate offering a max deal for a "less than max worthy" small-position player.

The decision to sign JJ too is close for me. He might be a good Pg fit for us. Unfortunately, I'm not sold on it and I think Jaric is an equally good fit, especially given salary. I would just assume sign him and make sure we get one of the better bigs to further develop.

This points back to the draft a little. We needed to fill one of our positional needs with one of the two outstanding Pgs available. Didn't happen. Now we are trying to force a player in at Pg. My thought is to fill at least one of our needs this offseason (a big) and work on the other in the draft next.

W

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[HairyDawg]

I agree Walter, it doesn't seem to me that JJ could make a lasting impression on this team as a point guard. As for max contracts, teams in the NBA now basically judge on how much a player can help them win. That being the case, different players are more valuable to different teams. I don't see us paying JJ the max when there are other options to explore that would cost the hawks way less, of course I could be wrong.

[KB21]

We had the second pick in the draft. A team as bad as the Hawks should never take a positional need over the best player with a pick period, much less a pick that high.

You guys that are sitting here screaming that Atlanta should have drafted a point guard over the best player in the draft in Marvin Williams and are wondering why the Hawks want to bring in Joe Johnson simply do not understand Billy Knight's philosophy. He said from day 1 that he would always take the best player available in the draft. This isn't Pete Babcock. Pete is the one that will pass on a superstar to get a player who has much less ability simply because it fills a need, even when that player doesn't fit the current philosophy. Not that Pete had a philosophy.

Joe Johnson has the ability to play point guard, but more importantly, he adds the length, athleticism, and versatility that fits BK's philosophy to those point guard skills.

You guys that have done nothing but scream about the Hawks not filling a positional need in the draft obviously believe that you should not only pass on taking the best player available. You should also take a player that isn't even close to fitting your philosophy.

[HairyDawg]

Of course all that again hinges on whether JJ can play the point consistently. Some think he can, some thing he cant. If all that length and athleticism simply get us another swingman, what good does it do?

[Guest Walter]

KB...I'm not sure Marvin is any better than Deron. Unless I'm sure one player will be better than another, I do consider position.

If BK continues to build this team with his philosophy, we'll be a team comprised of 5, 6'8" players with Rudy Gay as our center. At some point the philosophy of versatility has to stop! It works at the 2, 3, and sometimes the 4 because those positions are more interchangable. Versatility doesn't work near as well at the 1 and 5 if only because unlike the 2, 3, and 4 there isn't a position on either side. I don't want combination 4/5s and 1/2s if we can help it. Give me a true point and a true center. We d@mn sure need a true center if we are going to have Josh Smith or Marvin at the 4. We should prefer a true point if we are going to run such a young team.

Of course, you have your differing opinion on both JJ and Marvin, KB. That being said, I'm not set against Marvin as our draft pick or JJ as a FA signing. Both came/come with consequences and better alternatives may have been/may be available.

Same with the "versatility only" philosophy. At some point, when your philosophy becomes more important than your goal (i.e. BPA or best player for team available) you must question the viability of that philosophy. I guess my exiting question for you KB would be when BPA and your GM philosophy don't match, what will BK select for. I fear he will still select for versatility, mistaking that for BPA if not ignoring BPA. May not have happened yet, but then that's only because I didn't see a significant talent difference between Deron and Williams, particularly after their end-run NGAA performances.

W

[KB21]

BK has already gone against his philosophy in selecting the best player available. He took Salim Stoudamire with the first pick in the second round. Salim doesn't fit the category of being long, athletic, and versatile, but he does fit the best player available category.

Of course, Salim isn't being looked at by Billy as a starter, short term or long term. Salim is simply looked at by Billy for what he is. The best pure shooter to enter the NBA in a long time.

I don't believe you need a traditional point guard or a traditional center. There are more and more scoring point guards coming into the league than ever, and there are less and less pure centers coming into the league than ever. There may be two true centers in the NBA right now that actually pose a threat offensively and defensively. This isn't the same league that boasted Hakeem Olaguwon, Patrick Ewing, a young Shaq, Alonzo Mourning, a young Dikembe Mutombo, and David Robinson. This is a league that has the 6'8" Ben Wallace and the 6'9" Amare Stoudemire as two of the top five centers in the game.

Why do the Hawks have to have a seven footer that doesn't fit our philosophy just because of Erick Dampier or Primoz Brezec? The answer is, we don't. The day of the center has passed. There is only one Greg Oden, and the Hawks shouldn't kill themselves by trying to find someone that can match up with him 5 years from now.

You meet Billy's philosophy with resistance because no one before him has had tried fielding a long, athletic, and versatile team.

Just wait. When Billy's vision comes to fruitition, the Atlanta Hawks will be known as the team that is often imitated but never duplicated, because in a copy cat league, teams are going to start trying to copy what Billy has done in Atlanta.