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Monday, July 14, 2008
Crickets again …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SMYRNA - That’s the only noise you’ll hear around Hawksville these days.
Crickets.
All’s quiet on the Hawks front, save for the start of rookie/free agent mini-camp today (can’t wait to see some of these guys in action tonight at Philips. The Finals was the last real basketball I watched other than the lil’ fellas playing on my neighbor’s hoop).
Since the Hawks aren’t any closer to resolving their free agent issues than they were this time last week, we might as well turn our attention elsewhere. But not before I tell you about my weekend in Mississippi (yeah, I go way back with the M-I-Crooked letters, Pops was born there, did some college there, Wifey’s from there and I worked there, too).
I stumbled into the Horseshoe Casino in Tunica where the Mike Miller Foundation and Joe Johnson Charity Event was being held (easily one of the most well run charity events I’ve seen, complete with a golf and poker tournament, pretty ladies playing in a beach volleyball tournament, memorabilia auctions and a concert - a good sounding group from Gainesville called Sister Hazel).
While I didn’t get a chance to spend loads of time with JJ, I did corner him a couple of times while I was there and we talked a little shop - as much as could be had with so many people vying for his time and so much else going on.
He’s watching this free agent situation as hard as anyone and while he’s not panicked or anything, he is definitely keeping a cautious eye on the proceedings. Being a veteran of the restricted free agency roller coaster (who can forget his ordeal in the summer of ‘05? - the Hawks roared to that 0-9 regular season start after taking all of July and more than half of August to get Johnson signed) he knows better than to assume anything before offer sheets (or contracts) are signed and either matched or not.
“Whatever happens, and I don’t care to speculate on anyone else’s business, we have to be ready to go as a unit when training camp starts,” the Hawks’ captain and two-time All-Star said. “We worked too hard and accomplished too much late [this past] season to let anything stop us now. We have to be ready to go as a unit when training camp hits. The rest of the East is loading up and getting ready to chase Boston. And we hit pushed them as hard as anybody did throughout the playoffs, so we know that we what we’re capable of if we play at our peak. But we have to do it from the start. And that means coming to camp with everything in place, guys ready to go and knowing their roles and putting our foot on the gas from the start.”
He said he did speak with Josh Smith before the July 1 start of the free agent period, but hadn’t spoken to him since then in an effort to allow Smith the breathing room he needed to handle his business.
The funniest thing of the entire deal is that the first thing JJ said to me when I saw him was, “What’s going to happen with Josh and Josh?” That’s the exact same question I was going to ask him if he hadn’t beaten me to it.
It’s not often that a team’s entire offseason is tied up in one or two transactions like this. But the Hawks, without a draft pick or any significant cap room to woo other free agents, have only two things to deal with before they can move on to the task of finalizing the rest of the roster for training camp in October.
They have to get something done with the Joshes.
“That’s our summer right there,” JJ said. “That’s all there is to it.”
DOUBLETALK?: The standard line Hawks since last October has been that they’ll match any offers from other teams to both Smith and Childress. And up until now we haven’t had any reason to do anything but take them at their word.
But a few of the NBA veterans in Tunica over the weekend warned me not to believe that hype.
“That’s what everybody says until an offer sheet hits the table,” one guy said during an informal meeting of the minds on all things NBA. “And any good general manager keeps his options open no matter what. That’s the only way to keep from being blindsided.”
That conversation prompted me to dial up an executive from another team and ask if he believed the Hawks would stay true to their word and match offers no matter what and shun sign-and-trade offers for Smith and Childress.
And that’s when he hit me with a left hook I just didn’t see coming.
“Not only will they consider a sign-and-trade for Smith, I know that they’ve talked with one team in particular about the potential of a sign-and-trade if things get out of hand,” he said. “I also know that they’ve turned away a couple of other teams that called interested in sign-and-trades for Smith; turned them away without so much as discussing the idea conceptually. But the longer this thing drags out the more likely things could change. You remember how things played out with Joe Johnson. The Suns swore they would match and that they wanted to keep him and then when they saw the price tag Atlanta was willing to pay they negotiated a sign-and-trade. Just because you reserve the right to match doesn’t mean you will. That’s just the way the business works.”
That makes things even more interesting where Childress is concerned since there have been at least a half dozen teams peppering the Hawks with sign-and-trade offers for their sixth-man.
The Clippers are exploring their options right now (perhaps expanding their list of targets to Luol Deng and Andre Iguodala, or not, according to one of my spies), and could very well hit Smith an offer sheet this week and turn the heat up on the Hawks.
But all anyone can do until then is speculate.
STICK TO SNITCHIN: This is a little off the subject, but did you happen to catch the clip of Jose Canseco getting knocked out (twice) by Vai Sikahema in some celebrity boxing match over the weekend.
For all those major league players that wanted to do the same, just thank Sikahema for taking care of that business for you.
Sikahema didn’t just beat up on Canseco for sport. He worked Canseco over in the name of charity, too, donating $5,000 of his winning to the family of a slain Philadelphia police officer who was shot and killed in May.
ADDITIONS AND SUBTRACTIONS: When we leaked the Hawks’ summer league roster here last week it apparently wasn’t the final list. Justin Williams and Wayne Simien joined the group (as did Al Horford, who was on it all along but was left out because I knew he wasn’t going to be playing in Salt Lake City).
Williams and Simien are intriguing prospects, as both would help solidify a Hawks frontline that could use a dose of size, experience and athleticism.
After seeing Solomon Jones last week and talking to him about the summer I was under the impression that he would be on the summer league squad as well. But he has since opted not to play, a dangerous move for a third-year player who has seen limited action with a new general manager on duty.
It wouldn’t have hurt for Jones to make his way to summer league and showcase his skills, just so Rick Sund could get an extended look at him in an environment where he might have had a chance to show off a bit.
GONE BABY GONE: As you’ve probably seen, many of the names on my free agent shopping list have been removed. James Jones (Miami), Jarvis Hayes and Eddie Najera (New Jersey) and DeSagana Diop (Dallas) have already snapped up.
While there are still some viable options out there, I don’t feel good about the Hawks’ chances of picking and choosing the ones they want to try and go after to fill out the roster because by the time they finish with their top priorities there won’t be much left to pick and choose from.
Jones or Hayes would have been the ideal big shooter off the bench the Hawks need. And Diop could have solved their issues at center spot and allowed all sorts of lineup machinations by Hawks coach Mike Woodson.
Instead, the Hawks will have to scour the ranks for guys to fill out those roles. One guy I wouldn’t be surprised to see them bring back is Lorenzen Wright. He’s a veteran big and a guy who’s probably going to play at the minimum salary this season. He’s also one of the players JJ mentioned during one of our conversations over the weekend.
He talked about how much the Hawks missed Wright’s toughness after that trade deadline deal that brought Mike Bibby to town. It’s toughness that they’ve yet to replace.
I’ll share some observations from mini-camp this evening, hoping that someone will stir up the free agent mix between now and then so we can have something other than crickets providing us with background music for the day.
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