AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2005 > August > 11 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USThe end is near in Belkin saga
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
At 3:55 p.m. Thursday, the Atlanta Hawks stopped frowning. The e-mail detailing David Stern’s support of the other eight owners and his rejection of one Steve Belkin reached team officials just as the press conference to introduce Zaza Pachulia — who’ll forever be known as the free agent who isn’t Joe Johnson — was concluding. Just like that, there appeared an exit strategy from the abyss of this wretched week.
Assuming the Boston judge was telling the truth about requiring Stern’s prior approval to oust an NBA governor, the end of Belkin’s short, capricious ownership is at hand. First he gets defrocked, and then he gets bought out. And then the Hawks make the deal for Joe Johnson and everybody lives, if not quite happily ever after, then at least with one fewer megalomaniac to accommodate.
We may never know what impelled Belkin to do what he did. A guy waits 20 years to buy into the NBA and then, 16 months in, he all but begs to be bought out? Does he need cash that badly? Did he decide that holding 30 percent of the Hawks didn’t count as owning a real team? Is he the one man left in this world who thinks Boris Diaw is a real asset?
Billy Knight didn’t shake Belkin’s hand for a reason. “You have to have principles,� Knight said, and by blocking the trade Belkin had essentially announced that he knows the NBA better than his general manager. Asked if he could work for Belkin from here on, Knight said: “If he’s a minority owner, sure. If he’s the sole owner, no.�
The latter won’t happen, thank goodness. Haggling over the price of Belkin’s buyout has already begun. (What, you expected the ol’ trade-blocker to take the first offer?) He’ll be gone within a month, not that he was ever really here in Atlanta. But what of those few locals who still, boats against the current, care about the Hawks? Will this latest embarrassment convince them that the Hawks aren’t worth caring about?
“I’m trying to get players,� Knight said. “I don’t worry about things I can’t control. I don’t sit around pining away about things like that.�
And that’s exactly what he should say. The only thing that will put a 13-69 record and Belkin of Boston behind the Hawks is enough good players and enough early wins to make people believe that, recent events notwithstanding, this franchise can walk and chew gum at the same time. Johnson will help. Marvin Williams will help. Salim Stoudamire will help. Heck, even Zaza from (the other) Georgia will help. In this as in everything else, Belkin got it wrong. Knight knows his business. Knight has taken a bad old team and is replacing it with a shiny new one.
Had the Johnson deal gone through the first time, there would be more enthusiasm about the Hawks than there has been since Dikembe Mutombo arrived in the summer of 1996. We can quibble about giving Phoenix two first-round picks and spending $70 million for the Suns’ fourth-best player, but that’s just quibbling. The Hawks were desperate for a big-name free agent, and doggone if Knight hadn’t gone and gotten one. And then Belkin said no, and we all started saying, “See? Same old Hawks.�
Only they aren’t. Once Belkin departs and Johnson arrives, you’ll see a franchise with a shared agenda. You’ll see a talented young team — not yet a good one, but on its way at last — assembled by a clever GM whose refusal to shake Belkin’s hand will stand as the lasting image of this strange episode. And it’s surely just coincidence that, one day after he spurned Belkin, Knight banged up his right pinky while working in his yard. So he really can’t shake hands now.
No matter. He made his point. He stood on principle, and he’ll be here long after Steve Belkin is a forgotten footnote. At 3:55 p.m. Thursday, the forgetting officially commenced.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA
