Players thoughts on LD, Sund on hiring and LD LIVE

[Sothron]

They are reportedly trying to sale the Thrashers. Two ways most ownerships go with that. One is slash payroll and make the team more affordable to buy and the other is to have a Yankees type team and get a high price. Not going to go any further with the Thrashers since I do not follow Hockey; but it seems to me if they really want to dump the Thrashers they are making the best of a bad situation by making them affordable.

As far as the Hawks, we have a very young team and until last season we had one all-star. I do not see how payroll could be much higher given our ( blown) draft picks and players. I do not doubt for one moment that the ASG wants to keep payroll down. That is just smart business to not overpay for players; but at the sametime once we resign Horf and if we retain JJ, our payroll will in all probability jump into the top 15. That is not cheap but it is frugal. In fact a lot of owners may very well consider us a model, if we continue our upward trend and keep payroll below the top ten....

The problem with the Thrashers is that the ASG owns the Hawks, Thrash and the arena. They can't sell just one part of that. If they sold the Thrashers for example and they relocated that would leave tons of empty dates on their schedule for Phillips Arena. They basically have to sell all of it or none of it.

My point still stands. The Thrashers aren't just recently cheap, they've been cheap ever since the ASG took over. I know you you don't know hockey but they've let All star and Superstar talent leave or be traded because they wouldn't pay them. That is unforgivable. That is the very definition of cheap. There is therefore no argument that they are cheap.

[Buzzard]

The problem with the Thrashers is that the ASG owns the Hawks, Thrash and the arena. They can't sell just one part of that. If they sold the Thrashers for example and they relocated that would leave tons of empty dates on their schedule for Phillips Arena. They basically have to sell all of it or none of it.

My point still stands. The Thrashers aren't just recently cheap, they've been cheap ever since the ASG took over. I know you you don't know hockey but they've let All star and Superstar talent leave or be traded because they wouldn't pay them. That is unforgivable. That is the very definition of cheap. There is therefore no argument that they are cheap.

But but but this is about the Hawks. What all-star have we let go because we did not want to pay him? We have signed and extended every draft pick except Chillz. Who aint no all-star by any stretch; and we replaced him coming off the bench with a 10 mill a year sixth man.

I agree we will never have a Knicks or Mavericks type payroll. Our owners just are not going to spend that kind of money and take that big a risk. But I have no doubts if we ever were to draft a Dirk, we would do everything in our power to keep him.

[Admin]

You can't say an ownership group is not cheap when it owns two franchises in Atlanta and won't even debate on one of them. The Thrashers are an absolute laughing stock in the NHL because of how cheap the ASG runs them. The Thrashers debacle ALONE proves as an ownership group they are cheap. The poster above you said they were so cheap they should even sell the Thrashers because they can't afford to own them! How is that NOT cheap? :cant believe:

Would you prefer that I get involved in discussing something that I already said I know nothing about??

As for the Hawks, let's see what you got here. You don't disagree the ASG never uses the MLE. You don't disagree the Hawks have had the lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams for three years running. You don't disagree the Hawks hire cheap assistant coaches to be head coaches. You don't disagree Larry Drew is THE cheapest head coach in the NBA. You don't disagree the ASG won't even let the GM keep a full roster for goodness sake.

I'm trying to find a fact in here that supports your argument and I'm not seeing anything. All I see is your opinion that the team never had a high priced coach interested in it which I have never heard before that post and that because we don't have bad contracts or drafted well we didn't have to overspend on players. Ok...? Where are some facts that showed this team ONCE IT GOT to the playoff level has spent appropriately to make it a better team?

There are no facts. Only opinions. I have never said I expected the ASG to spend every penny on this franchise. Not once. I said they are cheap and the facts prove my point in spades. I don't even need to get into the whole Woody not being fired for financial reasons to show this. They have had a chance every offseason and regular season for three seasons and more now to show their financial backing of this team does extend more than it has and they have failed to do so. The Thrashers for goodness sake barely make the league team MINIMUM salary.

There are facts that show how cheap this ownership is and the only disagreement over that resides in the realm of opinion. I tend to let facts stand over opinion.

First off, what facts did you present? Did I miss them?

How can I prove that the team had a high-priced coach interested in coaching them when I don't believe one exists. On the other hand you obviously believe those coaches do exist so it should be easy for you to find articles discussing those coaches that were interested, right?

You claim to understand the CBA so I'm guessing that you know that we couldn't just go out there and sign big money players the last 3 years, right? Let's look at what we had in terms of salary over the past 6 years and what the salary cap and luxury taxes were for each of those years as well.

Team Salary Info

http://content.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/salaries/teamresults.aspx?team=1

NBA Salary Cap Numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Salary_Cap#NBA_Salary_Cap_history

Mid-Level Exception Numbers (1/4 down the page)

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm

Year 	Total Payroll 	Salary Cap		Luxury Tax

2009-10 	$ 65,059,897 	$57,700,000	$69,920,000

2008-09 	$ 68,165,839 	$58,700,000	$71,150,000

2007-08 	$ 58,531,493 	$55,600,000	$67,865,000

2006-07 	$ 47,812,036 	$53,100,000	$65,420,000

2005-06 	$ 36,632,449 	$49,500,000	$61,700,000

2004-05 	$ 40,658,440 	$43,900,000	?

[/code]


Looking at that chart what I see is a team that during their playoff years (2007 - 2009) have been over the salary cap. 


In 2007 we increased our payroll by 11 mil. We added long term payroll by trading expiring contracts for Bibby. [b]The MLE was NOT available to the Hawks as they were 8.6 million under the cap at the beginning of the offseason. Again we finished the season 3 million OVER the cap. [/b]
In 2008 we increased our payroll by 10 mil. We matched the offer sheet for Josh Smith. We lost Josh Childress and there are conflicting reports as to whether or not we offered our entire MLE to him.[b] We then used part (1.5 mil) of the MLE (5.585 available) to sign Flip Murray[/b]. [b]As far as I know the remaining 4 mil was not used.[/b]
In 2009 we reduced our payroll by 3 mil. We added long term payroll by trading expiring contracts for Jamal Crawford and re-signed Mike Bibby, Zaza Pachulia and Marvin Williams to deals that lowered their total salaries and were seen as excellent moves and very market friendly deals. We also signed Joe Smith to the veterans minimum. [b]We did not use our MLE in 2009, which was 5.854 mil. [/b]

It is important to note that in 2009 we could have signed replacements for Bibby, Zaza or Marvin but we would have had to use the MLE in order to do so and therefore would have been a significant downgrade in talent. Instead the team chose to keep their free agents at a much higher cost as opposed to replacing them using the MLE, which is all that we would have been able to use to sign replacements. 


[b]Summary:[/b]


[b]2007 [/b]- Increased payroll by 11 million, finished season 3 million over the cap. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] > Not cheap. [/b][/color]
[b]2008[/b] - Increased payroll by 10 million, finished season 10 million over the cap, had 4 million that could have been spent with MLE but again there are reports that we offered the entire MLE to Josh Childress. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] [/b][/color][color=#2e8b57][b]> Could have spent a little more and been over the luxury tax but certainly not cheap.[/b][/color]
[b]2009[/b] - Reduced payroll by 3 million, finished season 8 million over the cap, had 5.8 million to spend via the MLE but would have put us over the luxury tax. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] > Should have spent more but certainly understandable that they didn't want to go over the luxury tax for a 9th-10th man type of player.[/b][/color]

[b]Conclusion:[/b]

Based on the lack of evidence that the Hawks had high-priced coaches interested in coaching the team as well as the [b]FACTS[/b] above relating to player salaries (which I tend to let stand above opinion and unfounded "inside sources") calling them cheap is uninformed, unintelligent and flat out misleading. 


If you can come up with the [b]FACTS[/b] that you claim to have formed your opinion on which refute what I've clearly proven to be true above then I'd love to see them.

[Sothron]

Would you prefer that I get involved in discussing something that I already said I know nothing about??

First off, what facts did you present? Did I miss them?

How can I prove that the team had a high-priced coach interested in coaching them when I don't believe one exists. On the other hand you obviously believe those coaches do exist so it should be easy for you to find articles discussing those coaches that were interested, right?

You claim to understand the CBA so I'm guessing that you know that we couldn't just go out there and sign big money players the last 3 years, right? Let's look at what we had in terms of salary over the past 6 years and what the salary cap and luxury taxes were for each of those years as well.

Team Salary Info

http://content.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/salaries/teamresults.aspx?team=1

NBA Salary Cap Numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Salary_Cap#NBA_Salary_Cap_history

Mid-Level Exception Numbers (1/4 down the page)

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm

Year 	Total Payroll 	Salary Cap		Luxury Tax

2009-10 	$ 65,059,897 	$57,700,000	$69,920,000

2008-09 	$ 68,165,839 	$58,700,000	$71,150,000

2007-08 	$ 58,531,493 	$55,600,000	$67,865,000

2006-07 	$ 47,812,036 	$53,100,000	$65,420,000

2005-06 	$ 36,632,449 	$49,500,000	$61,700,000

2004-05 	$ 40,658,440 	$43,900,000	?

[/code]


Looking at that chart what I see is a team that during their playoff years (2007 - 2009) have been over the salary cap. 


In 2007 we increased our payroll by 11 mil. We added long term payroll by trading expiring contracts for Bibby. [b]The MLE was NOT available to the Hawks as they were 8.6 million under the cap at the beginning of the offseason. Again we finished the season 3 million OVER the cap. [/b]
In 2008 we increased our payroll by 10 mil. We matched the offer sheet for Josh Smith. We lost Josh Childress and there are conflicting reports as to whether or not we offered our entire MLE to him.[b] We then used part (1.5 mil) of the MLE (5.585 available) to sign Flip Murray[/b]. [b]As far as I know the remaining 4 mil was not used.[/b]
In 2009 we reduced our payroll by 3 mil. We added long term payroll by trading expiring contracts for Jamal Crawford and re-signed Mike Bibby, Zaza Pachulia and Marvin Williams to deals that lowered their total salaries and were seen as excellent moves and very market friendly deals. We also signed Joe Smith to the veterans minimum. [b]We did not use our MLE in 2009, which was 5.854 mil. [/b]

It is important to note that in 2009 we could have signed replacements for Bibby, Zaza or Marvin but we would have had to use the MLE in order to do so and therefore would have been a significant downgrade in talent. Instead the team chose to keep their free agents at a much higher cost as opposed to replacing them using the MLE, which is all that we would have been able to use to sign replacements. 


[b]Summary:[/b]


[b]2007 [/b]- Increased payroll by 11 million, finished season 3 million over the cap. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] > Not cheap. [/b][/color]
[b]2008[/b] - Increased payroll by 10 million, finished season 10 million over the cap, had 4 million that could have been spent with MLE but again there are reports that we offered the entire MLE to Josh Childress. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] [/b][/color][color=#2e8b57][b]> Could have spent a little more and been over the luxury tax but certainly not cheap.[/b][/color]
[b]2009[/b] - Reduced payroll by 3 million, finished season 8 million over the cap, had 5.8 million to spend via the MLE but would have put us over the luxury tax. [color=#2e8b57][b]Analysis[/b][b] > Should have spent more but certainly understandable that they didn't want to go over the luxury tax for a 9th-10th man type of player.[/b][/color]

[b]Conclusion:[/b]

Based on the lack of evidence that the Hawks had high-priced coaches interested in coaching the team as well as the [b]FACTS[/b] above relating to player salaries (which I tend to let stand above opinion and unfounded "inside sources") calling them cheap is uninformed, unintelligent and flat out misleading. 


If you can come up with the [b]FACTS[/b] that you claim to have formed your opinion on which refute what I've clearly proven to be true above then I'd love to see them.



I'm disappointed in this response. This is just more attempted personal shots and lean on facts.


You can't claim an ownership group that owns TWO TEAMS is not cheap when you won't even debate the FACT that one of those two teams is kept to the league MINIMUM salary. That ALONE proves my case. There is no debate. None, Zip, Zero. The ASG barely manages and funds the Thrashers which by itself proves they are cheap. You literally can not get any cheaper than barely maintaining the league MINIMUM salary. 


I already laid out facts you STILL have not argued against just for the Hawks.


The lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams three years running

The lowest paid head coach in the entire NBA

The hiring of two assistant coaches with zero head coaching experience in the NBA thus making them very cheap contracts

The refusal to use the MLE to sign players

The refusal to even keep a full roster

The refusal to give Josh Smith and Josh Childress competitive offers. The only reason Smith was retained was because they MATCHED the offer Memphis gave him. They did not offer him that deal.


You have yet to refute any of the above because they are facts. You can  not refute they are cheap because one of the two teams they own is kept to a league MINIMUM payroll. You can not refute the fact they are one of two teams in the NHL that doesn't even own their own minor league AHL team. You can not refute the fact they consistently let All Star and Superstar talent leave Atlanta because they won't pay for them (in the NHL).


The only thing you can throw up is a chart showing when the team was rebuilding that they barely spent any money and when the team made the playoffs they brought the team salary up some. So what? 


You are the one who claims no highly regarded coach wanted the Hawks job. I know Adelman's agent contacted the Hawks. I know that coaches like Fratello, Scott, Johnson and Carlisle expressed interest in the past with the Hawks. Even Hubie Brown has said before the Hawks are one of the few teams he would be tempted to come back and coach again. I don't have to prove a false positive here. YOU are the one saying no highly regarded coach has ever wanted the Hawks job while the ASG has owned them. YOU are the one who has to prove that argument.


What is painfully obvious is that you are ignoring facts that you know completely disprove your argument. The Thrashers ALONE prove without question the ASG is cheap. I don't know why you feel so gung-ho to defend the cheapest ownership in Atlanta sports but I know you will continue to do so.

Edited June 16, 2010 by Sothron

[AUhawksfan]

I love how people are quick to point out we had the lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams like it's a bad thing. That just means we got the most bang for our buck and are being cost efficient. I'd much rather be in that boat than be like the Knicks in previous years with an extremely bloated payroll and not making the playoffs.

[Sothron]

I love how people are quick to point out we had the lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams like it's a bad thing. That just means we got the most bang for our buck and are being cost efficient. I'd much rather be in that boat than be like the Knicks in previous years with an extremely bloated payroll and not making the playoffs.

And what if we had spent more to bring a MLE player every year? Imagine how much better our roster would be. Imagine the roster flexibility it would give us for potential trades to bring in other players as well.

[Admin]

Laughable response. More attempted personal shots and lean on facts.

Yes this is becoming more and more laughable. I provided an entire post worth of FACTS and I'm beginning to wonder if you can even grasp the difference between facts and opinions. And what "more attempted personal shots" are you referring to?

You can't claim an ownership group that owns TWO TEAMS is not cheap when you won't even debate the FACT that one of those two teams is kept to the league MINIMUM salary. That ALONE proves my case. There is no debate. None, Zip, Zero. The ASG barely manages and funds the Thrashers which by itself proves they are cheap. You literally can not get any cheaper than barely maintaining the league MINIMUM salary.

Is it really that difficult for you to understand that for my purposes I don't give a damn what they spend on the Trashers since I could care less about that team? And is it really that difficult for you to understand that it makes zero sense for me to discuss what the ASG does with the Thrashers in relation to whether they are cheap as owners of the Hawks.

I already laid out facts you STILL have not argued against just for the Hawks.

The lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams three years running

The lowest paid head coach in the entire NBA

The hiring of two assistant coaches with zero head coaching experience in the NBA thus making them very cheap contracts

The refusal to use the MLE to sign players

The refusal to even keep a full roster

The refusal to give Josh Smith and Josh Childress competitive offers. The only reason Smith was retained was because they MATCHED the offer Memphis gave him. They did not offer him that deal.

You have yet to refute any of the above because they are facts. You can not refute they are cheap because one of the two teams they own is kept to a league MINIMUM payroll. You can not refute the fact they are one of two teams in the NHL that doesn't even own their own minor league AHL team. You can not refute the fact they consistently let All Star and Superstar talent leave Atlanta because they won't pay for them (in the NHL).

First off do you even know what the word "cheap" means? Maybe that's where the confusion is coming from for you? Just to help you out here in order for them to be "cheap" they would have to be among the lowest spending teams in the league and they'd have to consistently pay players and coaches below market value and none of those cases apply to the ASG.

The lowest payroll among Eastern Conference playoff teams three years running

I do not need to dispute that as I am taking you at your word that it's accurate but the key point here is THAT IT DOES NOT QUALIFY THEM AS BEING CHEAP. Do you consider the Portland Trailblazers to be "cheap"? Because they had the lowest payroll in the league and we were 10 million higher than them.

The lowest paid head coach in the entire NBA

Guess what, he's also the least qualified head coach in the entire NBA. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather have an ownership group that pays the players and coaches fair market value but I guess you'd rather overpay a coach or hire a re-tread.

The hiring of two assistant coaches with zero head coaching experience in the NBA thus making them very cheap contracts

Give me a list of names of better alternatives that also wanted to coach the Hawks.

The refusal to use the MLE to sign players

The MLE has only been available to us the last 2 years but even if the Hawks spent ~5 million more per year over the last 2 years using the MLE it wouldn't change whether they are cheap or not.

The refusal to even keep a full roster

1. Most teams don't carry a full roster all season. Sund publicly stated that he wanted to keep 1-2 roster spots available as well as saving some of our MLE to try and sign a veteran player that is cut and perhaps you forgot this but we tried to use our MLE to sign Big Z this year.

The refusal to give Josh Smith and Josh Childress competitive offers. The only reason Smith was retained was because they MATCHED the offer Memphis gave him.

Obviously Josh Smith's contract was competitive since he signed it with Memphis and no other team made him an offer. Again it appears that you'd prefer they overpay players rather than giving them fair market deals.

They did not offer him that deal.

Can you prove that?

The only thing you can throw up is a chart showing when the team was rebuilding that they barely spent any money and when the team made the playoffs they brought the team salary up some. So what?

I'm the one that showed that we were over the salary cap during our playoff years and that AT BEST we've had 2 years during that time where we could have spent another 5 million per year and in one of those I can prove that we tried to spend that 5 million on Big Z and in the other year I'm nearly certain that we offered more than that amount to Josh Childress. You claim to understand the CBA but don't seem to understand that those 2 MLE's are the only options the Hawks have had for signing more non-veteran minimum players. Sorry to have to tell you but you can't just magically increase your payroll without drafting players that require big contracts after their rookie deal is up.

You are the one who claims no highly regarded coach wanted the Hawks job. I know Adelman's agent contacted the Hawks. I know that coaches like Fratello, Scott, Johnson and Carlisle expressed interest in the past with the Hawks. Even Hubie Brown has said before the Hawks are one of the few teams he would be tempted to come back and coach again. I don't have to prove a false positive here. YOU are the one saying no highly regarded coach has ever wanted the Hawks job while the ASG has owned them. YOU are the one who has to prove that argument.

Don't go twisting my words here. I never said that no highly regarded coach has EVER wanted the Hawks job while the ASG has owned them. You see the Hawks had a head coach that they gave multiple contracts to and he improved the team every year so there wasn't a head coaching availability other than the initial year he was hired and this year when Woodson had his first year where the team didn't improve and he was not brought back. So AGAIN I ask you what proof would you like me to give you that no highly regarded or high-priced coach wanted to coach the Hawks. Should I go searching for articles about how Phil Jackson isn't interested in coaching the Hawks? What about Jerry Sloan should I try and find something on that? I have made my claims because I am unaware of high-priced or highly regarded coaches being interested in coaching the Hawks while on the other hand you claim that those coaches do exist so why not prove it since proof would absolutely have to exist if you're correct?

Adelman, Scott, Carlisle - Show me proof that their agents contacted the Hawks or they showed interest in coaching the Hawks.

Fratello - Oh no you mean we didn't hire a coach that nobody else wants?

Johnson - Show me proof that if we offered Johnson the same contract that he got in NJ that he would have taken it. Because I can show you proof where he said that is the job he wanted all along.

Hubie - Great! He'd be "tempted" to come back and coach the Hawks. He's also publicly said that his health is not good enough to be an NBA head coach again. Tell you what, if he comes back and is a head coach again in the NBA for another team I will change my stance and say that we should have tried to hire him but I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

What is painfully obvious is that you are ignoring facts that you know completely disprove your argument. The Thrashers ALONE prove without question the ASG is cheap. I don't know why you feel so gung-ho to defend the cheapest ownership in Atlanta sports but I know you will continue to do so.

Again refer to above about how I could care less whether they are cheap with the Thrashers or whether they are the cheapeast owners in Atlanta sports. Being that this is a Hawks site and I am a Hawks fan the ONLY thing I care about is what they do with the Hawks and whether they are competitive with the rest of the NBA.

So there you go, I believe that I addressed every single point of yours and uh oh there's no proof to be found that they can correctly be defined as cheap.

[Admin]

And what if we had spent more to bring a MLE player every year? Imagine how much better our roster would be. Imagine the roster flexibility it would give us for potential trades to bring in other players as well.

FACT - The MLE was available to use for the last 2 seasons and was not available for any season before that.

2008 - we had 4 million left over after signing Flip and if we use that 4 million it would have put us 1 million over the luxury tax, thus costing an additional 1 million for that player in taxes.

But just for grins, what player could we have signed for 4 million that would have made us so much better or given us so much better roster flexibility?

2009 - we attempted to use the MLE to sign Big Z but due to moronic NBA rules he was allowed to re-sign with the Cavs for the minimum. Signing him would have put us about 1.5 million over the luxury tax, thus costing an additional 1.5 million for him in taxes and guess what, our "cheap" owners wanted to do it.