thecampster

Maybe the biggest indictment against Softman is his 1.6 FTA/game last year on 12.8 shot attempts (2.5 FTA/game for his career). As opposed to Superman's 8.9 FTA/game for his career. (6.7 last season on just 8.5 shot attempts).

Forget the names, your emotional attachments, your beer goggles. A numbers by numbers comparison of 2 players. Format - Player 1 vs Player 2 Age - 30 years, 7 months vs 30 years 1 month Finals appearances - 1 vs 0 Career ppg - 17.8 v 14.3 Playoff ppg - 19.1 vs 12.9 Career rpg - 12.7 vs 8.9 Playoff rpg - 14.1 vs 8.4 Career bpg - 2.1 vs 1.2 Playoff bpg - 2.6 vs 1.4 Career FG% - 58.2% vs 53.5% Playoff FG% - 58.9% vs 48.3% Total games - 879 - 574 Playoff games - 89-74 Playoff record - 43 - 46 vs 26 - 48 Games/season - 73.25 vs 63.8 Cost - $22.4 million vs $25.8 million Player 1 has consistently been a better player throughout his career both offensively and defensively. Player 1 has consistently gotten better in the playoffs where player 2 has played worse. Player 1 costs 3-4 million less per season for 3 years and is on a shorter contract. In year 4, player 1 is a free agent at 34...while player 2 is aging and will be a JJ type contract at $30 million / year with declining skills. Sometimes the biggest blessing in life is unanswered prayers. I think 3 years from now, Boston will be regretting the Horford contract like a night of heavy drinking at a lesbian bar.

Screw you hippie! (do I make the list now?)

You know what...I hadn't thought of that....a bit classless for sure.

Per http://www.spotrac.com/nba/boston-celtics/cap/, they have 78 million in active contracts and 21 million in cap holds. They'll need to clear 5.335 million of those holds to do this deal with Al. or opt not to pick up the contract of Amir Johnson. They'll have to do some juggling to get this deal with Al done, so no they can't just sign KD.

We aren't capped out. Howard at 22.4 Sap at 20 Baze at 16 Splitter at 8.3 Korver at 5.24 Thabo at 4 Scott at 3.33 Dennis at 2.7 THj at 2.3 Moose 1 Edy at 1 patterson .875 Bembry 1.2 Prince 1.9 Total - 90.245 (ish) Scott is going to get waived which clears up 3.33. This means we have 7 million to sign 1 player and the MLE to sign the 15th. If we salary dump Splitter, we'll have 16.5 million to sign a player. + the MLE and BAE. If we salary dump splitter and thabo we'd have 20 million to sign 1 player, + one on the MLE, one BAE and one vet min. Its all doable.

SMH...Hawksfanatic making an omission is not "wrong" its an omission and the kind of thing he regularly corrects in updated articles (having written 5 books myself, believe me...mistakes and omissions happen). Most of your post is a direct restating of my earlier posts, all of which I give credit to Hawksfanatic for giving the appropriate background info. If Hawksfanatic came on here and corrected my numbers, I would agree with his assessment until I had a chance to double check my own math. Then I'd go back to him and ask him to show me where I'm wrong if I can't find it.

One last thought on this. For the purposes of the cap, you have to have a minimum number of players on the roster. For every players under 13 you have to add $525k to your cap total before signing other players. There are posters on the board upset about picking up Moose's option or re'uping Patterson. Moose is only a million dollars. His effective cap difference is then just $475,000. Patterson is $875,000 so his cap difference is only $350,000. These are not bad moves. For the purposes of the cap, picking up Moose's option early is a net win by avoiding the cap hold..same with Patterson.

Let me see if I can make some sense of this. Howard 3 years 70.5 million. Raises of 4.5% annual. Approximate deal is: year 1 - $22.4 million, year 2 - 23.5 million, year 3 - 24.6 million. Bazemore 4 years at 70 million. Don't own bird rights so 4.5% annual raises. Approximate deal is: years 1 - $16.45 million, year 2 - 17.2 million, year 3 - 17.95 million, year 4 -18.4 million. Roster with current players minus expendables. For cap purposes, year 1 is all that matters. Numbers are approximates. Howard - 22.4 million (*year one). Millsap - 20.07 million Baze - 16.45 million (*year one) Schröder - 2.71 million THj - 2.28 million Moose - 1.02 million Edy - 1 million Patterson - .88 million Prince - 1.93 million Bembry - 1.2 million Total - 69.94 million - 10 slots filled, cap room left - 24.06 million. Others Splitter - 8.25 million Korver - 5.24 million Thabo - 4 million Scott - 3.33 million Now it is no secret that Scott's contract is not guaranteed. He will be released pending his legal issues. Al's cap hold is 18 million. So the remaining salaries have to fit within 24.06 million minus 18 million in order for the Howard and Baze signings to be legit. This means that all 3 of Splitter, Thabo, Scott must go. We must find trade partners for Splitter and Thabo, Scott must be waived. So add Korver @5.24 and Horford at $18 million and you have 12 roster slots and for the purposes of signing contracts (13 contracts) need to add in one vet min contract hold and are just barely under the $94 million cap. So far...everything is ducky. Now for the purposes of the cap you can resign Horford to a max deal @ $24.9 million. New salary total is: 100.08 million. with 3 slots to fill. You now have an MLE and an 8.8 million traded player exception. I am assumiing the traded player exception is what was used to sign Howard which now explains the Jeff Teague trade. So we really only have the MLE ($5.63) and bi-annual exceptions ($2.5). The rest of the roster then gets filled at 1 MLE player, 1 BAE player and 1 vet minimum. Because of the mechanisms in place, the Hawks only need to drop 2 of Splitter/Korver/Thabo..not all 3. Dropping all 3 results in having to sign a vet min to replace...one is staying for sure. Okay so after tall that, the existing roster (assuming all resigns) looks like this. Schoeder/MLE/Vet min Baze/THj/Bembry/Patterson Millsap/Korver/Prince Horford/Moose Howard/Edy/BAE (bi-annual exception) This puts the Hawks at approximately $110 million in salary and well into the Luxury Tax. Year 2, the salaries of Korver, Muscala, Patterson come off the books, as well as the contracts of the vet mins and exception (one year) signed players and Millsap can opt out. Meaning that the Hawks can avoid the double penalty year 2 with the cap. Okay, so although that roster looks guard heavy...lets remember than in rotations, Millsap will spend time at the 4 making Moose the 3rd string, Horford will spend time at the 5 making Eddy 3rd string at center. Patterson and THj are both emergency point guards as well, but a starting 5 of Dennis, Baze, Sap, Horford, Howard is easily a top 5 defensive unit in the east. The Hawks will be a pick and roll/ pick and pop nightmare for most teams. Dennis needs to continue improving his shooting and the rookies need to develop.

I'm slowing getting behind this Dwight thing at the right price and here's my reasoning. Is Howard a better 5 than Horford? It's arguable with a slight edge to Howard. He is a better shot blocker and rebounder. Is Horford a better 4 than Millsap? Again, it's arguable with a slight edge to Horford. PER shows Horford plays better at the 4 and he's never played the 4 with a real center on the floor. Is Millsap a better 3 than Thabo/Korver? This is a no brainer. Millsap keeps defenses honest in a way Thabo never could and if I see Korver o'lay on defense one more time with a hard arm whack to a driving player I may start cutting. Is Korver/Thabo off the bench better than what we had off the bench last year? Bench production sorely lacked last year....moving Korver to the 6th man role could improve this unit. Summary: The Hawks are an even better defensive team with Sap/Horford/Howard and the addition of Howard makes Splitter available for a salary dump to help keep Baze and keeping Baze/Korver to the bench lets the Hawks waive Scott. I think its doable.

I think the Hawks are waiting on word from a few free agents to be before deciding Scott's fate. If there is a chance they can get a solid free agent, they'll waive Scott before July 10th.

I will officially stop watching the Hawks in protest this year if they sign that little prick. Some people just don't belong in a Hawks uni.

All I know, is that in 3 years, Edy Tavares is getting paid.

Bye Kent

Salary list of the 4 players I mentioned. Splitter - $8,250,000 Korver - $5,239,437 Thabo - $4,000,000 Scott - $3,333,333 Total - $20.823 million in cap.

I'm for Edy getting more PT...I'd sacrifice Splitter to the cap gods in a heart beat.

To address the shooting/shot creation issue, I posted in a previous thread that I felt Bradley Beal should be our number 1 target (not Baze). Being a less than 7 year player, Beal's max contract is around $21 million. I say you max him and make Washington match.

Maybe the most interesting thing about this list is that because of the massive jump in the cap, the top 16 team can all trade for players directly (absorb contracts) without having to meet the cap provisions of the CBA. This means there are potentially 15 teams out there to market the services of Thabo, Korver, Scott, Splitter to in order to free up more space.

http://www.spotrac.com/nba/cap/ The above link shows the available cap room for each NBA team. I hope this helps. Cap space column includes cap space with holds. To get true cap space, Use this formula. Cap space + Total Salary (w/holds) - Total Salary + (transactions) = True Cap space. Example: Hawks (note: This number does not include the loss of Teague salary + the cap hold of the #12 pick) $8,332,662 + $85,667,538 - $56,925,323 = $37,074,5877 ($43,142,977 after the Teague deal). The Teague deal adds approximately 8,000,000 for Teague's lost contract but subtracts $1,931,900 but won't be reflected in the numbers from the site till official.

Actually its 3 on rebounding, 1 on fouls and one on 3 point defense. It is also a widely held belief in the community, on ATL sports talk radio and pretty damned near everywhere else that the reason Cleveland beat us the last 2 seasons is Tristan Thompson making Horford his B#$%^.

This is not a cherry picking thread and I am not Diesel. This is an honest opportunity for people to post their own fixes....get their "I told you so threads ready". You've been on this board for 3 years now. You should know by now, that every year people log on with insane ideas of signing the top 3 free agents available, exceeding the cap by $50 million and every year there is always one person (you the last few years) who comes on and swears he has inside information...posts 30 possibilities and then when 1...just one hits...swears he's an insider and everyone should listen to him forever. I have been a Hawks fan since 1987 when I saw them for the first time in person in Indianapolis. I've been on this board since before it was an official board and I've been reading here off and on the last 2 years, I just haven't had time to post. The "insiders" come and go. If you have a "What they are gonna do" or a "What I think they should do"...post it...just one. But attacking me because my joke hit a little too close to home is transparent to everyone else reading.

Its silly season here again on the Squawk, back from my extended absence, I've decided to end the silly topics of "A highly connected friend of my family member's dog's groomer says he was told by a guy who milks my cousin's neighbor's cow that we could land KD, Beal, Lebron to play along side of Horford, Sap, Bazemore" and bring Hawk land back to reality. Issue 1: The Hawks were 3rd from last in rebounding differential last year at -4.4 rebounds per game. Issue 2: The Hawks were 4th from last in opponents offensive rebounds per game last year at 11.5. Issue 3: The Hawks were last in offensive rebounds last year at 8.5 per game. Issue 4: Although the Hawks shoot great from 3, their 3 point differential last year was only 1.2 per game...meaning opponents of the Hawks shoot equally as great. Issue 5: Atlanta averaged 2.1 less free throw attempts per game last year than their opponents. What does this mean? Each of these is a symptom of being undersized. Being small = less rebounds. Being small = more fouls to control penetration, offensive rebounding and post positioning. Being small means being shot over by the opposing player. The number 1 priority in free agency is not Bazemore and not Horford. The number 1 priority is getting bigger to improve rebounding. The Hawks offense is fine, ranking 12th in the NBA. Their defense is great, ranking 6th. The Hawks lose in the playoffs by being out muscled, out rebounded and worn down. Feel free to add your suggestions for how we fix these glaring weaknesses and your realistic plan for how it all fits under the cap.

20 million is a max contract for Baze....I call BS. In other news...Bigfoot could be real and I have a shot with Selena Gomez.

Supes, let me "clarify" my statement. A cap hold means that when dealing with other free agents and you have your own unsigned free agents, you must consider the hold as what you owe that player for cap purposes. This is why you must renounce that player if you wish to sign others (See Hinrich/Humphries). You may go over the cap to sign your own players, but not in combination with other players from other teams. For example:...the Hawks want to resign Baze and give him an idiotic $16 million. They also bring back Hump and Hinrich at $3 each. They are allowed to go over the cap to resign Horford. However, the Hawks instead offer Durant a max contract....they cannot then go out and sign Horford to a max without having renounced their other free agents first and fitting that money under the cap. This is why when Lebron went to Miami, the big 3 all had to take discounts. Even though Wade was their free agent at the time and they could go over to sign him, they signed other free agents as well. The order you sign them in doesn't matter...it is all considered the same if all signed before real games start. Believe me, I have better than most but less than AHF/Hawksfanatic understanding of the cap (although admittedly my max numbers are a little off based on the recent minor bump in the cap). Also, each and everyone of the free agents on the list will listen to offers from any team that A) can offer the max and B) can show how doing so will pair them with a championship caliber squad. The only question is...can you fit them into your system. For example, Dwight Howard is a hard fit for Atlanta because his limited outside game and bad free throw shooting requires you surround him with Durant like offensive talent.