AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2008 > July > 03
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Match point!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
PARTS UNKNOWN - The private plane.
The limo.
The old jersey-with-his-name-on-it-in-the-locker trick.
The Mayor.
The wine and dine.
The man on the street coming up and telling you how much they need you routine.
The Philadelphia 76ers spared no expense and pulled out every stunt possible to woo Josh Smith Wednesday (and probably a bit more today).
The only thing left is the offer sheet, which can’t be far behind.
Smith has time to make a decision on what he wants to do. But I can’t imagine it will take him long to sign, not because his heart is in Philadelphia but mostly because NBA players are like the rest of us.
They love to be loved.
They love for someone to show them love.
And you have to give the 76ers credit, from what the descriptions I’ve heard from at least three different people in Philly about Smith’s visit, it was one home run swing after another - from the moment Smith and his agents stepped off the plane to their evening visit with the Sixers’ brass and coaching staff.
So I called an executive from another team I know and asked him what he thought of this deal and if everyone was putting way too much stock in Philly’s recruiting pitch and not enough in the nuts and bolts of this process and he put on his professor’s hat.
“The bottom line in all of this is the Hawks can match that offer,” he said. “I don’t know if they will. Everything I’ve seen and heard says they will. But you never know until the situation comes up. But they do have that right to match on their side and that’s a powerful weapon when you’re talking about restricted free agents. That’s why you only see a few teams that dive publicly into situations with these restricted free agents. What you don’t see is all the teams working behind the scenes to try and worm their way in there and see if they can’t get in on the action. If the Hawks don’t match and want to try and massage a sign-and-trade deal to keep from losing him outright, there will be a line of teams ready to do business. Since no one will know the exact numbers for the salary cap [and thus the actual figures that can be offered to free agents] until next July 8th, I don’t expect this thing to come a head until then. But that’s when it should be clear to everybody how this thing plays out.”
The line has already formed for Josh Childress, the Hawks other man in the crosshairs these days.
As many as eight different teams have contacted the Hawks about sign-and-trade deals for Childress, per one of my best spies who insists that there are several Western Conference playoff teams desperate to add Childress to their mix (his exact words were that they “need an athletic younger guy who can play without the ball and come off of their bench and give them a boost.”).
That’s nearly a third of the league that’s interested in acquiring one of your players, which should be a clear indicator of that player’s value around the league.
So I asked my scout friend why these guys are so attractive and he made a good point that I think we might have overlooked about both of these guys.
“Somebody else has already done the heavy lifting in terms of developing these kids, and I call them kids only because at 22 [Smith] and 24 or 25 [Childress], they’re still in the early stages of their careers,” he said. “They’ve both played major minutes and had major roles on a team that’s had to operate under some pretty extreme conditions down there with that ownership situation and that shaky coaching situation. They’ve managed to improve year after year through all of that and they played huge roles in helping that team make the playoffs. Not all of these restricted free agents on the market right now have played those kinds of minutes and had those kinds of roles on their teams. You have a huge sample of work to evaluate on those two kids and then you realize that they both have plenty of room to get better and that’s what intrigues people.”
That also has to be what intrigues the Hawks, who have never strayed from their public stance that they’ll match any offers made to these guys.
TWO NAMES ON MY BRAIN: I know we’ve debated endlessly around here about the Hawks adding another shooter with size their mix but few names have surfaced that anyone confirms the Hawks have actual interest in.
Two names that have come up in conversations I’ve had the past two days that would seem like ideal fits for the Hawks are James Jones and Jarvis Hayes.
Jones is the sharpshooter from Portland (he shot 44 percent from deep last season and save for the 24 games he missed with a left knee injury, was one of the better bench players in the league last season, averaging eight points per game in a tough minutes situation on a talented Portland team).
There’s a good chance Jones signs back with Portland. But if he becomes available, I’d be chasing him down if I were the Hawks, a team that needs outside shooters in the worst way. He ranked third in the league in 3-point shooting this season and has played on winning teams in Indiana and Phoenix during his career.
Most of us are already familiar with Hayes, whose name appeared here frequently two years ago when I was in my “The Hawks should trade for Brendan Haywood and Jarvis Hayes” phase, which was before Al Horford was drafted and the Hawks traded for Mike Bibby (adding the second outside threat needed to take some pressure off of Joe Johnson on the perimeter).
The former Georgia star has the experience, skill-set and price tag that would fit well with what the Hawks are working with. He’s also proved to be a quality player in a reserve role, most recently in Detroit, capable of making a splash when called upon (I watched him stroke seven 3-pointers against the Hornets late in the season on his way to a 29-point outing).
Again, these are guys that make sense to me. I don’t know if the Hawks are interested in them or not and I wouldn’t expect anyone to share that information right now anyway, since those guys won’t be in play until later on during this free agent frenzy.
But if we’re talking about the Hawks needing shooters with some size to come off that bench as game changers, these are two vets that would clearly seem to fit the bill.
Both of them have playoff experience and the requisite size (6-8 for both and 220 pounds for Jones and around 230 for Hayes) and skill to help this team out in a major way next season.
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