Chill Will Be On 8:20am

[jhay610]

I disagree. Sund OR EVEN HIS ASSISTANTS didn't reach out to Chillz the way Greece did and that's why he's now there and not here.

They told him to "get another offer".......he did that and they STILL refused to match it or do a S&T. How can you blame someone for walking after that. They made him feel like an unwanted piece of sh*t and he packed his bags and left. If you listen to Chillz whenever he mentions Sund, he sounds very bitter towards him. I blame this whole mess 100% on Sund and the ASG for hiring this clown, who's first move was to resign the worst coach in the history of the NBA.

While I tend to side with the Childress camp, we need to stop acting like these guys are a bunch of babies that have to be pampered. If Chillz didnt like his position on the team, while that may or may not be a legitimate point, it should not have been brought up in regards to negotiations. There is a chain of command here, and like it or not (I personally don't), Woody is in charge of how our player personnel is implemented on the floor. Sund and the ASG has nothing to do with it. In regards to contractual negotiations, it is neither here nor there - completely irrelevant.

Chillz NEVER signed an offer sheet Jack. If he had, Atl would have had a chance to match or let him go. It is not the organization's duty to further Childress' career at the expense of the franchise. That is to say, it is not a moral obligation of the ASG to find a SnT so that Chillz could be happy. If Sund felt that the only SnT packages were for garbage, then of course he should not have done any deal. While there is speculation that Barbosa may have been involved, it is just that. These SnTs are complicated under the CBA and if both parties aren't feeling like they are appropriately compensated then the deal will never get off the ground.

As I said earlier, I am alarmed that Sund never met with Chil face to face, but Dolfan raises some good points in that the onus is not entirely on Sund to accomplish this. We do not know all of the ins and outs of this story. Everyone is so ready to fly off the handle just from listening to an interview with a player. Of course the player will present his side of the story and will attempt to portray himself in a good light.

I do not absolve Sund and the ASG from all wrongdoing. In fact, as I said before, I think Chillz has some valid reasons to gripe. I don't think it's Chillz obligation to take a "gentlemen's agreement" from Sund or the ASG. I can't fault him for being suspicious about that idea.

But the whole thing of him feeling like a 2nd priority or not getting enough ego strokes from management is laughable. This is a business. The players and their representation are out to get as much money as possible, and management is trying to save as much as possible while remaining competitive. There is no reason to blow smoke up Chillz a**. He was a 2nd priority. We wanted him back, but he was not our CEO; to borrow and spin Dolf's analogy, he was more like a vice president. He was offered what I believe to be fair compensation for his role on the team. That he went and got a better one is a credit to him and his representation.

Now, let's resign Smooth and put this all behind us.

Edited July 31, 2008 by jhay610

[exodus]

So where did I call SUND the CEO? Obviously most companies don't have General Managers or I would have said that instead of CEO, which I called a related position.

A CEO (or a related position) of a company isn't going to be negotiating contracts with workers several levels down from them.

Negotiating player contracts is part of Sunds job description. A sports team is run very differently from a typical company. Trying to draw a parallel there is a huge reach.

How many companies have 22 year old millionaire celebrities on their payroll?

[mudderfudder77]

I can only laugh when people try to draw parallels between professional sports and any other business. They don't have close to the same rules. And when a sports team does try to run its offices like a corporation (see the bears in the late 80's and 90's) failure seems surely to follow.

[Admin]

A CEO (or a related position) of a company isn't going to be negotiating contracts with workers several levels down from them.

Negotiating player contracts is part of Sunds job description. A sports team is run very differently from a typical company. Trying to draw a parallel there is a huge reach.

How many companies have 22 year old millionaire celebrities on their payroll?

But you understand the point, it's never the boss' job to cater to the employee. If Josh Childress was so upset that he never got to meet with Sund then he should have been proactive and done something about it. Do you disagree?

[mudderfudder77]

Amen, Dolfan, Amen :clap:

Right on, my brother.

Childress was an EMPLOYEE on this team. If he was so eager to get it done, he has to go to the BOSSES--Sund, ASG.

Bosses don't come to employees--doesn't work that way.

So you've never been recruited for a job? Because I surely have, and that doesn't come close to level of recruitment involved in professional sports. You think Elton Brand had to call Philly? Or Baron Davis call the Clippers?

Deng sure as hell didn't go groveling to Paxson - he made them come to him. Just like Okafor did. And Monta.

[exodus]

But you understand the point, it's never the boss' job to cater to the employee. If Josh Childress was so upset that he never got to meet with Sund then he should have been proactive and done something about it. Do you disagree?

You are confusing the sports world with the real world.

Whether or not Childress is upset about not meeting Sund isn't really the issue anyway. The problem is that he was offered a handshake agreement from someone he never met and you expect him to just accept it.

[mudderfudder77]

But you understand the point, it's never the boss' job to cater to the employee. If Josh Childress was so upset that he never got to meet with Sund then he should have been proactive and done something about it. Do you disagree?

In professional sports it sure as hell is - at least if they want to keep their job it is. Now obviously there is a line, but lets not act like Pro Sports front offices even closely resemble the offices here on Clark and Adams.

[Admin]

You are confusing the sports world with the real world.

Whether or not Childress is upset about not meeting Sund isn't really the issue anyway. The problem is that he was offered a handshake agreement from someone he never met and you expect him to just accept it.

Again, it's not like Sund was some guy in a back alley. This is a guy who is very well respected around the league and is not known for screwing players over. Sund probably should have made more of an effort to meet with Childress face to face, but I also think that Childress should have given Sund the benefit of the doubt since Sund's reputation would be on the line. If he had screwed over Chillz and rescinded the handshake deal the players (and teams) would have never forgotten it.

[KDT88]

- ASG/Sund's top priorities is to keep both Joshes -

- ASH/Sund of verge of losing both even though they're restricted -

- FAIL!! -

Edited July 31, 2008 by KDT88

[Admin]

In professional sports it sure as hell is - at least if they want to keep their job it is. Now obviously there is a line, but lets not act like Pro Sports front offices even closely resemble the offices here on Clark and Adams.

You are entitled to your opinion but I disagree. There's nothing wrong with a GM catering to a player but he's certainly not required to do it and I'd say that it's far more common for the players reps to come to the GM, not the other way around.

[exodus]

This is a guy who is very well respected around the league and is not known for screwing players over.

Atlas posted a thread on the Seatle board which made it clear that Sund is known for alienating their free agents. He certainly wasted no time living up to his reputation.

[Antmillennium]

This whole "he wouldn't meet with me" BS is getting tiring. Name me ONE profession where it's the CEO's (or related position in the company) job to come and find the employee to meet with them. Childress could have gone AT ANY TIME to Sund's office and met with him, unless you believe that Sund would have said no you cannot come in. Childress could have been at the meeting in Washington and if he wasn't there then it's nobodies fault but his own, unless again you believe that Sund said he couldn't be there.

At the company that I used to work for my boss once asked me to wait 3 months to talk about my raise, I didn't understand why and I wasn't thrilled about it, but I took him at his word that in 3 months he would take care of it, and he did. There's no difference here. Sund asked Childress to trust him and without any reason not to trust him, Childress refused.

Okay, so Sund said go and get a better deal and Childress got what he thought was a better deal, but should it be up to Sund to cater to Childress and accept junk for him?

I'm just baffled how you guys can be so pro Childress and so anti-Sund in regard to this when the reality is that there is plenty of "blame" for both sides but as usual most of you do nothing but blindly take the players side.

OK. Would you like to share what some of these "behind the scenes" things were that necessitated that Childress had to wait to sign that contract that the Hawks offered him??? Is the "behind the scenes salary cap" for the Hawks going to change in the next couple of months? Do they have to scrape up some money first? I mean, what is it? What in the world could it possibly be that was preventing them from signing Childress to a contract that they counter-offered him with if there was no chance that they might go back on their offer???

[Admin]

OK. Would you like to share what some of these "behind the scenes" things were that necessitated that Childress had to wait to sign that contract that the Hawks offered him??? Is the "behind the scenes salary cap" for the Hawks going to change in the next couple of months? Do they have to scrape up some money first? I mean, what is it? What in the world could it possibly be that was preventing them from signing Childress to a contract that they counter-offered him with if there was no chance that they might go back on their offer???

Do you really think that I have any idea what goes on behind the scenes? No, just like you don't and just like nobody else here does either. It's naive to think that it's as black and white as some people here do.

[Traceman]

OK. Would you like to share what some of these "behind the scenes" things were that necessitated that Childress had to wait to sign that contract that the Hawks offered him??? Is the "behind the scenes salary cap" for the Hawks going to change in the next couple of months? Do they have to scrape up some money first? I mean, what is it? What in the world could it possibly be that was preventing them from signing Childress to a contract that they counter-offered him with if there was no chance that they might go back on their offer???

Exactly. Why wait if there was NO chance they were going to go back on the deal? The only feasible explanation that I can imagine is that they wanted other teams to know that they still had room to resign Smoove without going over the luxury tax as long as Chillz remained unsigned. Still, if I'm in Chillz shoes though, that makes me think that there was at least a reasonable possibility that they could back out of the deal if things didn't go the way they wanted with Smoove. I don't blame him one bit for taking the deal in Greece.

[Admin]

Exactly. Why wait if there was NO chance they were going to go back on the deal? The only feasible explanation that I can imagine is that they wanted other teams to know that they still had room to resign Smoove without going over the luxury tax as long as Chillz remained unsigned. Still, if I'm in Chillz shoes though, that makes me think that there was at least a reasonable possibility that they could back out of the deal if things didn't go the way they wanted with Smoove. I don't blame him one bit for taking the deal in Greece.

Can you imagine a situation where they have to overpay Smoove and then paying Childress' new contract (and any other MLE/LLE moves) put them over the luxury tax and then needing to move a guy like Zaza for a future 2nd round pick to make room to give Childress his money? I can absolutely see that, considering that we signed Morris who could potentially take Zaza's minutes if needed.

[Antmillennium]

I totally agree. And its not like this doesn't happen in the NBA. Teams reach agreements and then hold off on actually signing the deals to make room or take care of other business. I really wonder how much "real world" experience some of you have had to not understand that business is rarely straight from mouth to paper.

Here is some "real world" stuff for you right here:

The NBA has a salary cap. You can only spend "x" amount of dollars before you go over the salary cap and have to pay luxury tax. Therefore, if you want to sign Childress to "y" amount of dollars, then you know that you'll only have "z" amount of dollars to spend on re-signing Josh Smith and attaining other free agents. That number will NEVER change. It doesn't matter if you sign Childress to that contract 1 month ago or 3 weeks from now. The money and the end result will be the same UNLESS you don't plan on following through with your offer. Therefore, sultanofatl, I ask you to please enlighten the rest of us on what kind of other business the Hawks had to take care of that required Childress to wait on signing the offer that the Hawks presented to him. The salary cap ain't changing in the next few months. NBA contracts are guaranteed, so the owners don't have to give out big signing bonuses to my knowledge. Therefore, if they wanted Childress to hold off on signing the offer for any other reason than the fact that they might not go through with the deal, then please tell us what it is

Edited July 31, 2008 by Antmillennium

[Diesel]

I think you would feel slighted if you felt like you were more than just good at some things. Especially if you had spent your whole life practicing and perfecting your 'game'.

I don't blame Woody for Chillz being a 6th man. But I think there is some merit to Chills assertion that Woody has pigeon holed these guys into a role and there is little chance of them getting out of it. Now if it was working really well then you could understand but I think we could have been a much better team over the course of the season with a different coach.

Outside of JJs end of the year praise for Woody most the players when asked basically say 'I don't have a problem with coach' Which is a far cry from 'I really want to play for him' All these things have an affect on negotiations.

A little off topic but not so much.

I was just talking to my neighbor. She is from Venezuela. She was describing how America is so filled with opportunity that anybody can come here, work hard and make a great living. I thought about it. America produces the most millionaires of any nation because of the very thing she said. There's opportunity. You see, where she's from, you're either born with money or not and if you're born with the have nots, you will always be a have not. A sort of caste system...

Well, Woody had a caste system going on with his team. That's sorta what Chillz described. Regardless of how well he played, regardless of how much harder than the other guy he worked, there would be no changing of roles...i.e. no moving up. Moreover, every one of you started to believe that Chillz is a 6th man too. Like i told you during the season, good players don't like that playing off the bench s---. They want to play with the starters. Woody had defined Chillz as a 6th man and it wasn't based on ability or work. It was based on politics.

He could have been a starter in Phoenix. That probably means that we were going to trade him for Raja Bell.

It's a shame that Chillz won't be followed in the euroleague. He prolly blows up now that he's out of Woody's caste system.

[Diesel]

What's wrong with being the 6th man? He isn't anywhere near the player that Manu is but Manu accepts that role for the good of the team and you don't hear him complaining about it even though he could start for almost every team in the league.

he doesn't have to be bettter than Manu. Manu's won 3 rings and should have been MVP.

He just has to be better than Marvin.. and on a game by game basis, he is.

[Admin]

he doesn't have to be bettter than Manu. Manu's won 3 rings and should have been MVP.

He just has to be better than Marvin.. and on a game by game basis, he is.

I don't see how that "logic" computes in the "Dieselputer". Manu is better than anyone ahead of him and yet he can accept that his highest value to the team is as the 6th man, so why can't Childress accept that his highest value to the team is also as our 6th man. It has nothing to do with whether or not he is better than Marvin. For the record, Marvin and Childress are A LOT closer in terms of value to the team than Manu is with anyone starting ahead of him.

[Chris18]

he doesn't have to be bettter than Manu. Manu's won 3 rings and should have been MVP.

He just has to be better than Marvin.. and on a game by game basis, he is.

Childress is too inconsistent game to game for him to be starting. At least with Marvin you know he will get you at least 10 points each game but with Childress it could be 20 one night and then 1 the next game.