Hawks have tendered offer to Johnson today?

[Admin]

"The Hawks have tendered restricted free agent Joe Johnson of the Phoenix Suns a five-year, $70 million offer. There is belief around the league that Phoenix may not match the offer to the swingman, despite originally saying it would. The Suns have two huge contracts with forward Shawn Marion and guard Steve Nash and will eventually need to offer the maximum to keep all-star center Amare Stoudemire in the fold. If Phoenix doesn't match the Hawks' offer, it likely would benefit the Sixers. Atlanta, despite its desperate need for a center, would have less to offer either Dalembert or restricted Chicago free agent Eddy Curry, who has already visited the team." Philadelphia Inquirer

"But the Hawks want Johnson to play point guard, a radical idea to some, and not take over the position earmarked for Childress. The news was as shocking as it was refreshing to Childress, who immediately started having visions of a backcourt with two versatile, 6-foot-8 guards capable of causing matchup nightmares for teams throughout the league. "That could be dangerous," Childress said. "Real dangerous." Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[ATL_BALLER]

Come on, baby - I REALLY want to land JJ.

[Admin]

but that was supposed to be pushed back right? Maybe we can tender it now, but he cant sign it yet?

[Lascar78]

I don't think this is new. I think we tendered that offer about 10 days ago. JJ accepted, though he can't sign until free agency starts. It's just a matter of whether Phx lets him go.

[Vol4ever]

chance the Hawks get JJ. Phoenix is not gonna let him walk. Now, they don't want to pay him the max but they will in the end.

[Lascar78]

That's about fair. I've been saying 30-40%

[DominiqueWilkins]

Hopefully JJ is Atlanta bound, because we really need some shooters on this team, and players that want to be All-Stars. JJ seems to want the bright future, but doesn't feel he can fully do that with the players on the Suns, and he wants to show that he can be a All-Star type player. Also I like that he seems like he really wants to play for the Hawks.

[Admin]

I just love how he has publicly stated that he actually wants to play for the Hawks and that he wants to help make us a winner. Not to mention that if he and Salim were in the game together we would be deadly from outside. I honestly dont know if he can play PG at a high level in the NBA, but I am more than willing to give him a chance because one thing we know for sure is that he can be an All-Star caliber SG if worse comes to worst.

[DominiqueWilkins]

I'm not the biggest expert on Joe Johnsons game, but I am worried about a couple of things, because Nash was able to get Joe Johnson open for the long ball, and will Joe Johnson be able to shoot a 3 while running the point? I don't expect him to have the same percentage like this past season, if he joins the Hawks, because he wont be as open, and he would have to be the one that creates(if he's the point).

[Plainview1981]

I doubt he would be as effective to us and possibly

will not be better than Chillz so it could turn out

to be a bad deal. I don't believe he is PG either.

The Suns record without Nash suggests that he can't

be the point and lead the team to wins.

[Diesel]

I believe that offensively we will have a lot of mismatches. Even if a team switched it's 2 onto JJ, the 1 still has to play JChill... I think our development as a team will rest with JChillz ability to take over a game with his passing and low post offense.

[Plainview1981]

I understand what you mean, but JJ likely will not get

the looks he had with the Suns IF he is indeed signed

and comes here. Having mismatches are good, but you

can't completely focus on that or it can end up hurting

more than helping. You got to be able to run an

offense as a PG... Can Joe Johnson do it and win? Going

by the Suns record without Nash, I have to say no.

[unknownjdb]

I'm not too worried about JJ getting open if he does end up with us. We'll have Chillz (who hopefully has vastly improved over last year), Salim (who teams will have to watch just as much), or Delk (who will be back for veteran leadership) out running the other guard position whenever JJ's on the floor. Shyt, Diaw and JJ could be as good as Diaw and Delk towards the end of last season. They weren't phenomenal but they had a certain rapart. Not to mention the improvement of Smoove, an addition of Marvelous and hopefully Harrington will be even better this year. And all that is without our center in place...

[cyman3]

Quote:

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I'm not the biggest expert on Joe Johnsons game

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im not the biggest expert either... however, there are TONS of Suns fans who rather get rid of Marion so they can keep Joe Johnson. And im VERY FAMILIAR w/ Marion's game, so that speaks for itself.

if Joe Johnson is as good as he thinks and wants to be "THE MAN" and take his game to another level, then by all means- please come to ATL!

[Iman]

I thought all this talk was just agents talking up their players at first. Then when I more realized the offer was out there I figured it didnt matter because Phoenix had to match, you cant break up a team that suddenly was that good. The more I think about it from Phoenix's point of view though, the more I think they let him go. Their owner is known to not want to spend more than a certain level. They still have 3 large contracts and still need a center. They let QRich go already so they have already sorta broke up the team. Over $10mil for JJ is a ton and even with him they probably cant get by the Spurs, it's probably smarter to go ahead and try to build a more conventional team.

From the Hawks perspective I didnt want JJ at first. That contract is too big and I dont think he'll ever be a point, JChillz minutes will be cut. We have a few fairly good guards but no true point. We mainly need bigmen, defensive ones. Maybe I'm just losing my mind or just want to see us sign anyone, but I'm starting to hope we get JJ now. We do have tons of capspace. We are weak defensively in the post but alot of that comes from Harrington being there most of the time and he'll probably be gone within a year. Harrington's money and draft picks will allow us to pick up points and bigmen later. Finally signing someone might help us sign more later. I still think a thinking straight GM with our team would not offer the max to JJ, but if we get him, at least now I'm moving away from being pessimistic to now being cautiously optimistic.

[Plainview1981]

Kurt Thomas is going to be the Suns center.

Right now they have:

PG:Steve Nash

SG:Jim Jackson

SF:Shawn Marion

PF:Amare Stoudmire

C:Kurt Thomas

Bell off the bench. I have the gut feeling they will

match. If they don't, then they reall haven;t improved

much.

Kurt Thomas/Bell for Johnson/Richardson is not really

an improvement.

[falc82]

I believe that the Suns will not match and that for their starting SG they will bring in Finley to reunite with Nash. Just my $0.02.

Would be much much cheaper and probably wouldnt lose much becuase Finley brings that toughness they desire as a team now.

[Plainview1981]

Finley isn't a good as Joe Johnson and will not

be there longterm I wouldn't think. Finley was

an underrated player for a while, but now he

isn't great anymore. His offensive game has

become rather inconsistant and he doesn't play

that good of defense nowadays. I think the Suns

will and should match.

[Spiral]

Something else that might ease the mind of the Suns' management is the fact that Barbosa has played well in Summer League averaging 18 a game.

[Admin]

since its all but a foregone conclussion that Finley will not be back with the Mavs next year and he has a natural raport with Nash. He still has a few good years left in him I believe and could admirably replace Joe Johnson when you consider he would cost probably half or a third of what Johnson will cost. Plus they did sign Raja who is a decent enough SG that could do well in their system and like someone else mentioned, they do Barbosa who should be ready to play additional minutes this year.

I honestly think that he will be our first big time FA signing since we got Deke so many years ago. Anyone else remember that day? After the dark days of the Danny Manning era, that sure was nice.