We Really Need to Trade Al

[hotboyj]

With the young guns playing so well, I think that we need to trade AL for a 1st Rounder. When Smith comes back there will be no need for all of these 6'9" guys. The reason walker's shot selection is so much better is that he is the one posting up the majority of the time. He is a better passer out of the double and this allows chillz to play his natural position. We may be able to get a high 10 low 20 for him. With many good players in the middle of the draft I think it is worth it. We have more of a future with Chillz than Al. I say we sign Walker and Lue, Draft Bogut, Rudy Fernandez, Chris Thomas, and Stefano Mancinelli(another high-flyer). With that core, we can be a great team in the long run. Chris Thomas could probably come in and start. Until then, we will just leave Lue in there. Hopefully we will have enough money left to sign Swift. We would be the best fast break team in the NBA. Almost everyone can take the rebound and push for the fast break. Bogut is supposedly a good dribbler.

Thomas/Smoove/Chillz/Walker/Bogut(Chillz has to be a 3)

[Buzzard]

And what hapopens when we lose Walker to free agency next year?

Here is the positives about Harrington. He is young, we own his rights and he is a solid player for the money.

Walker is a better player no doubt. But he is getting older and unless we extend that maxed out contract of his, he can walk no strings attached.

I think if we only move one of these guys, its Walker. Harrington will be an asset next year as well because we can match any offer for him.

But you never know with BK, maybe he is looking at moving both of them sooner or later this year.

Maybe Walker really will resign with us just because he likes Atlanta and he likes the people around him. I honestly do not think so. I think Walker walks next year one way or the other.

[Spiral]

Moving Harrington for a first round selection is not as easy as it sounds. We could do it pretty easily if we wanted to take on a bunch of bad contracts, but I seriously doubt that any team would give us their first round pick straight up in a trade for Harrington. Most teams in the NBA are not that flexible under the cap to make such a move.

I am in agreement with you in that I would also love to pick up a middle of the first round pick for Harrington, but I just don't know of any team that would would make such a deal.

[Weez]

much easier to move harrington than it is walker...for talent/age and contract reasons...

[Spiral]

I agree, he could be moved to almost any team in the NBA because of the reasons you cited. The point I was making is that it would be difficult to trade Harrington for a draft choice by itself. The team we trade him to will most likely need to dump some salary to take on Harrington's salary so we'd have to take a player back.

[Packfill]

Easier but riskier too, because you are not guaranteed that Walker will be around next year.

[Buzzard]

Moving Harrington would be on about the same level of easy I think. Problem is you trade Harrington and lose Walker to free agency, we go into next years draft needing one more position to fill than the multitudes we already have.

And we can always move Harrington next year. Walker will not be around to move after this year.

[CBAreject]

Harrington for a pick in the 20's? Geez. Harrington is a 24 year old who's logging 17 and 7 at SF. How many of those are floating around? AND, he's not a salary liability like so many are.

I'll be the first to say that this year's draft is deep (and Simien and Jack could be there), but we need to get more for Harrington than a 20's pick. Jamison was traded for the #5 pick after a season when he'd come off the bench and his value was relatively low.

If we're going to trade Harrington, I want a lottery pick (6-12) or a solid player, not just a 20's pick. I think we can do without Walker and Harrington (Smoove can play 4 and Chill the 3), but the team needs depth. We need to ask ourselves if we can count on a player drafted in the 20's to ever produce near what Harrington is. This team has had LOTS of 20th or so picks in its history and look what we've netted (Ed Gray, anyone?).

[KBatPCSOM]

Harrington is also one of the few good defenders the team currently has.

Some of you are so impatient that you are willing to trade a young player who is a building block of what this team wants to do. Sometimes, the idiocy of fans never ceases to amaze me.

[Spiral]

Ok, let's look at this for a second before you start referring to peoples thoughts and ideas as "idiocy." To infer that people are idiots because you don't agree with their view is not very nice. Harrington's contract is up after next season. It's not like he's locked in for 5 years at 6 million. He's got this year @ 6.2 and next year @ 6.9875 and then it's free agency time. Someone is going to pay him. It could be us, but it will depend on what we do in free agency this off-season. I would suspect he'll make somewhere around the 10 million range. If there is a contender out there right now that is willing to offer us a mid round 1 pick (picks 10-20) and an expiring contract, I think it would be worth the chance. Harrington was the 25th pick himself. So it is possible to get good players in the middle of the first round. Who knows what we'll do in free agency this off-season, but if Harrington is off the books, it gives us that much more financial flexibility.

To conclude this, I don't think people are idiots for wanting to deal Harrington. I don't think your an idiot for wanting to keep Harrington. I can see both points and I personally see no "idiocy" on either side.

[smithrules]

Hold on one second. Basically, the arguement is that walkers contract is going to expire anyway. So instead of trading away Harrington, who is young and talented, we should trade Walker. Thats if any trade is made at all. Despite what some say, Harrington has game, especially in the post. Harrington isn't flourishing right now, but there is a reason. We don't have any consistent SHOOTING from 3 point range! So hes getting double teamed because teams don't care about leaving our 3 point shooters open. Instead of all these people saying oh lets trade Harrington, they should be saying lets get a shooter to open up the paint for him. A team isn't about one player. Its about finding the right pieces and putting them together to make the best possible team. We have some nice young pieces already. Harrington is a good piece for the price we pay him and he has potential and value down the road. So, theres really not logical reason to trade him for a late first round draft pick. It would really have to be a great trade for billy knight to trade Harrington. Ill leave it to Billy I trust in his ability.

[Employee8]

Now here's THIS interesting scenario :

What if NO ONE (see Philly *cough*Dalembert*cough*) is out there that we can trade with that wants Walker and would give up a good player and/or a high draft pick??

EXACTLY. I may end up being wrong but I have a funny feeling that Philly will NEVER bite on that Dalembert Deal *and* there won't be any other team worth dealing with.....So I see Walker remaining with the team for the rest of the season when all is said and done.

[Spiral]

I understand the arguement. I also have looked at the listed salaries of every team in the league and I know it will be next to impossible to trade Walker for a pick because he makes so much money that there is hardly anyone out there with an expiring contract to give us in return for him. The one deal for Dalembert & Dog that has been brought up a million times is pretty much the only one I see as a do-able trade unless we wanted to start taking on bad contracts. There might be a 3rd team out there that gets involved on the Walker deal that makes it work. At this point though, I don't see a Walker trade happening unless the GM of Philly caves in.

The reason Harrington keeps getting brought up is because his salary and talent make him very tradable. It's not too hard to find someone out there to match up with Al's salary. Of all the tradable players on our team, I think Harrington & Walker would get the most in return. It's just much easier to find possible trade scenarios when your trying to match someone to Al's salary. There's only six players in the league that make more than Toine does this year. Personally, I'd like to come out of the draft with Bogut and Jack, and I'm trying to figure out a good way to get there. Looking at the whole picture though, I think the most likely scenario is that no one is traded and we play with what we got the rest of the year.

In all honesty, our team isn't playing well right now so it leaves us die-hards with nothing left to do but throw around possible trade scenarios. It doesn't hurt anything to do it. I just wasn't fond of another poster inferring that I was an idiot for suggesting something that I put thought and research into.

[TheDude]

Harrington is 24 years old and in his first year of starting. You may not think so, but he's going to get even better. Walker is the better player only because of 4 more years of experience AND starting longer. You guys are giving up on Harrington WAAAAYYY too early.

I too had hoped he'd come in and be mr. allword but i'm being reasonable now. He is a solid solid SF, and he comes at a very good price.

The ONLY reason to think of moving him is to make room for Chill at sf(and that assuming Walker is gone too) and sign Redd as SG. Draft Bogut and Jack. Sounds good but I really don't think that BK brought Harrington in to move him.

Harrington is going to get even better. And I think if any of the two are being shopped, it would be Walker.

[Diesel]

CONS...

He's 24 years old.

He's a 17/7 SF.

He's been very good in mentoring Smoove.

He's signed for next year.

PROS....

Chillz/Smoove/Smith will get to develop. i.e we break up the log jam at SF.

His age, contract, and ability will mean big returns for us.

How do you level those things? It's hard...

I think most likely that we trade NOBODY unless we find a trade for Delk or Diaw...

The point being is that Walker's contract is the biggest obstacle to trading him. BK has been financially conservative. The only kind of trades that we can get for Walker will be trades that will give us back a bad contract or two. It's not because of Walker, it's because the teams who want Walker only have bad contracts... NY and Philly both have a lot of bad contracts. Boston has some contracts that end this year and maybe we can find a contender to send GP to... Like Denver for Nene... I'd be all over that. But otherwise, it will be very hard to move Walker.

What really makes sense about Moving Harrington now is because one thing we haven't mentioned in all of these discussions is that he goes free agent next year. Hawks fans we should know that FAcy is a killer year for a player. His trade value dips and in Harrington's case, we have no real committment that he wants to stay beyound next year. I mean he's never played on a losing team before. Nobody has interviewed him and asked him about him being here longterm. We just take KB's word on it that Al will be locked up for the next half century because he's only 24... Come on.. Don't be a fool. We have one more year with Al. He goes free agent and we don't know what will happen.

As far as trading him for a #1... In my mind he's worth more that a 16-20 pick...

I would only trade him for a 1-15 if that was all we were getting.

However, if we were getting more, I would trade accordingly..

For instance:

If LAC gave us a first with this deal:

Atlanta trades: SF Al Harrington (17.1 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 3.1 apg in 39.7 minutes)

Chris Crawford (No games yet played in 2004/05)

PG Tony Delk (11.6 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.8 apg in 24.9 minutes)

C Kevin Willis (2.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 0.3 apg in 11.6 minutes)

Atlanta receives: SG Kerry Kittles (6.3 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 1.8 apg in 22.1 minutes)

C Chris Kaman (8.2 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 1.0 apg in 24.9 minutes)

I'd do it.

[CBAreject]

I'm thinking the Clippers don't benefit here. They actually like Kaman, as far as I know. He's beginning to be fairly effective. He's 22, and he averaged about 12 and 9 in January.

Also, the Clipps have myriad forwards and guards. Bobby Simmons and Corey Maggette can both play the 2 or 3, and they typically start at the wing positions. Elton Brand is entrenched at the 4.

As for the center position, they have Rebraca, but he's not a 30 mpg guy, so he's best off backing up Kaman.

I would say that the future is as bright as it has been in some time for the Clips. They finally have a squad that can play .500 ball. Bobby Simmons, Kaman, and Jaric have had breakout years. When they get Livingston back next year and get a lottery pick to play with, they will only get better.

So, how do they benefit from this trade? Do they clear cap space with Kittles? Isn't his contract ending soon, anyway?