Going off the assumption that Al will sign for 10m

[SmooveTheFuture]

I still see Al Harrington as one of those players once he gets paid he wont care about anything else. A player once he hits 29/30 will be on the downhill of his career and injury riddled. Thats just my opinon but thats the way I see it if hes 25 and doesnt play any defense I dont see him playing any D the rest of the way either..

[exodus]

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Al was never considered a defensive liability in Indiana.

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Obviously you haven't talked to their fans.

[Diesel]

Al wasn't considered a defensive liability in Indy... and he's still not. Well coached teams know they can compensate for certain individual weaknesses. Even now, Indy would take Al. They realize that he has matured offensively and whatever defensive weakness that he has, they can work around it.

All day long, Hawksquawkers complain about Al's individual defense as if he's solely responsible for our defense. However, MOSTLY it's guards that score big on us and it's the whole team that faulters defensively. I keep hearing about how this person is a great defensive player and that person is a great defensive player, but it's funny how their great individual defense doesn't make any difference to our team defense.

I'm not pointing the finger at Woody, but I would have expected far more at this point.

[Final_quest]

Wasn't the word out of Indy that they considered trading for Al, but in the end didn't want to give him a contract in the offseason.

They also tried and failed to trade Al for a mid first round pick before they traded him to us.

That being said EDS' point is still valid. Al could work out in a good defensive scheme with other good defensive players.

I'm still waiting for a compelling case for Al and JJ accounting for nearly half our payroll and the Hawks becoming a contender in that 5 year period. Until I can be convinced of that, I won't be in the retain Al camp.

[exodus]

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Al could work out in a good defensive scheme with other good defensive players.

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Al definitely could work on the right team, but the Hawks aren't that team. Indy plays good team defense so he could work out there, and Denver has Camby who can erase a lot of defensive mistakes. Chicago plays good team D too.

[Packfill]

Why can't the Hawks play good team defense?

[exodus]

A young team will frequently miss rotations or fail to block out.

The Hawks can't defend the pg position.

The Hawks only interior defender is Smith. Zaza and Al can't guard anyone near the rim.

Realistically the Hawks need a starting calibur pg and 2 bigs who can play D. They won't be able to aquire those players AND resign Al at $9 million/year unless they trade Smoove or Marvin.

Does anyone really think there is any chance BK will trade Smoove or Marvin?

[SouthernBred]

Everything is not Al fault. Guards score a lot on us is because of bad guard defense. And because when they drive by Lue or Salim, they have an uncontesed lay-up; Al doesn't even try to stop them when they come his way. I'm not saying they score all of there points on Al but they do run lay-up drills on him, along with the powerforwards or centers he may be guarding.

[Diesel]

Who said anything about Al being a 5 yr player?

If we retain Al, it's simply a means to stay competitive and to have tradeable pieces until either one of our players truly matures or we find a deal that we cannot say no to.

What I see is a lot of Hawksquawkers want to trade Al just to get him out of the door. They are all basketball IGNORANT... You don't trade a player who has as many offensive weapons as Al has shown just for cap space or a mid round pick or a player to be named later... If we trade Al, we must get EQUAL value or it's better for us to keep him... until we can.

It is welfare thinking that would have us to trade a player like Al for picks, capspace, or potential at this point. We are at the point, where we must recoup usable equal talent.

Diesel would you trade Al for Brad Miller? YES.

Would you trade Al for Andre Miller? Yes!

Would you trade Al for damaged goods? Hell no!

Would you trade Al for the 17th pick in the 2006 draft.? Hell NO!

Basketball Ignorant, Do you see the difference?

[Final_quest]

You have to decide if Al is going to be the type of player that you are glad you paid big money to retain or not.

Not every seemingly talented player is worthwhile to retain at a hefty price tag.

We could easily come up with a list of cap debilitating signings that owners and fans regret:

Hawks:

Koncak

Chris Crawford

Alan Henderson

Others:

Tim Thomas

Keith Van Horn

Juwan Howard

Rod Strickland

Vin Baker

Jalen Rose

Austin Croshere

Adonal Foyle

Michael Finley

etc.

These are just players that were retained by their existing team. How big does the list get when you include all signings?

Al Harrington is not an open and shut case. Overpaid players are tradeable, but more difficult to trade. I agree it's not totally clear in Al's case. My feeling is trade him if we can get something good or a couple #1 picks.

At this point I don't have faith in Al and JJ leading our team to anything significant. If you feel the same way, I would reconsider the idea that retaining talent is always the smart move.

[Diesel]

Nowadays, 9-10 million is not a hefty paytag...

however, if it was.. Let me ask..

For those who claim money... What is there in this offseaosn that we are so itching to spend money on?

If we sign Al for 9-10 million, he is definitely a tradable commodity. So it must be about this offseason.. If so, what is it??? Let me know why is it that we won't commit to spending?? I mean there must be something specific otherwise, we're just talking about a fear of paying 9-10 million dollars.

If we just spent 14 million on JJ and are afraid to spend 9-10 million on Al (as an investment) then we need to get out of basketball.. Because it's obvious that we don't understand it.

Let me ask the question.

When Utah signed JT.. Why did we match?? I mean, we were already over the cap in contracts.. What was the purpose of matching JT.. We knew that he was not a BK type player... Why did we do it?

[Final_quest]

We really don't know what Al will be signed for. With this crop of free agents some team might offer a max contract. We have been throwing around $9-10 million because it seems reasonable to us, but in this league people give away max contracts to people of Al's caliber.

We matched for JT partially because we were over the cap, but his contract was not as high as Al's will be. With JT it was either retain him or let him walk.

We have more opportunities with Al. If you want me to name a specific player or team, sorry that's not my style. I don't speculate like that or come up with dozens of fantasy acquisitions. Al could get us either a quality player or two, or multiple draft picks. That's all I will say.

Presently we have cap space, signing Al basically ends that. With JT we were over the cap, so we didn't lose much flexibility by signing him.

Signing Al ties our hands. Signing JT did not. Is Al worth losing our flexibility over?

[Diesel]

First off, the signing will be for the same purpose... To make sure we get something from our investment.

Obtaining Al was simply a return on our investment into Jax. Al just happens to be a player that BK favors. JT was not a BK type player and BK made sure that he got a return on his investment into JT. In this NBA, you just can't trade players for nothing, especially after demolition is over.

The other factor. Al makes us more competitive than we would be without him. We trade Al for yet more potential.. We might find ourselves in a the predicament of Losing A lottery pick to Phoenix. When we are focused on attracting players, we can't be uncompetitive and losing high picks in strong drafts.

[Final_quest]

No one said definitively that we would trade Al for draft picks. It's only a possibility.

What if we trade Al for a one-two year rental of an equal talent and a first round pick?

No one wants to let Al walk for nothing. We want to get the most we can out of him. Trading him does not mean we get nothing. Hopefully we get more than he's worth.

What if we resign Al and still end up in the lottery?

The next year we lose our pick, have no capspace, and only the MLE to offer free agents. All of the best free agents would have taken the other teams capspace and MLE, and we get whatever is left over.

To me, signing Al presents a scarier scenario than trading him.

[exodus]

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JT was not a BK type player and BK made sure that he got a return on his investment into JT.

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And what did they get? An expirer that turned into a first round pick. Not much of a return for a proven scorer that wasn't an expirer.

[Diesel]

There are tons of possibilities... But most of the possibilities as the polls suggest is trading Al for anything. Most of the time, ending contracts are traded for Picks... Because Picks have no value to the teams trading them. It's a welfare move to trade a good player for picks.

[Final_quest]

If BK would have wanted to trade Al for "anything," as you say, it would have been done by now. It sounds like we've had some decent offers.

You might not believe this but the Hawksquawk poll results, as you define them, have no bearing on what actually happens with Al.

The actual poll results indicate we should trade Al for the best package we can get. If you define that to be just anything, it's just your opinion and nothing more.

[Diesel]

I'm glad that it's BK making the deals and not some of the people around here. Seriously.. Some of the people here would have traded Al for Piakwoski and a lottery protected first just to make room for the others.. AND THEY HAVE SAID JUST THAT.

However, I'm glad that Bk knows how to get equal value for a trade.

It's still interesting.. When posed with Devin Harris for Marvin Williams, DocHawks makes the statement.. "I would not make a lopsided trade just to clear the logjam".. Then he goes on everywhere else proposing just do whatever we need to do to get rid of Al?

That's the mentality of a lot of squawkers...