Don’t look at the Hawks as a basketball team. Look at them as a spreadsheet.

The NBA trade deadline passed Thursday. Josh Smith is still a Hawk. Why? Because for general manager Danny Ferry, this season realistically isn’t about winning a championship, it’s about preserving the wonderful landscape without another volcanic eruption of red ink.

There were potential trade partners willing to send the Hawks players for Smith, possibly even name players. But after ridding the franchise of one debilitating financial virus (Joe Johnson’s contract), the last thing Ferry was willing to do was take on, say, Amar’e Stoudemire and an economic Bubonic plague (about $54 million for the next 2½ years).

 It’s easy to understand the logic. Ferry is managing for July, when only three Hawks players will still have guaranteed contracts. He is embracing flexibility. It doesn’t matter that salary-cap space comes without guarantees. Cap space can’t pass, can't shoot, can’t rebound. It can’t be slapped on an advertisement (“Come watch our cap space take on Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder!”). But it comes with hope.

Ferry is clearing land with the belief that others will buy in and he’ll be able to build his Shangri-La, not a Knights Inn.

Here’s the problem with what happened Thursday: There is a chance Josh Smith walks after this season for nothing. Even if he has overvalued himself and doesn’t get the contract he hopes for in free agency, he still may leave. Ferry obviously wasn’t enamored with any of the players he was offered in trade, but aren’t weak assets better than potentially no assets?

“We weighed the positives and negatives about each of our opportunities, and at the end of the day, we felt the best decision was to stand pat," he said.

When asked if he factored the Hawks’ chances of re-signing Smith in his decision – or even if the team definitely desired to re-sign him -- Ferry responded, “We value Josh. He’s been good for us. ... We’ll address those things from the Hawks’ standpoint this summer, and I’m sure Josh will address things from his standpoint.”

Maybe the Hawks keep Smith. Maybe they can convince Smith to stay and will use him to try to lure Dwight Howard back home.

Maybe it also backfires and Smith and Howard wind up on the same team, but in Los Angeles.

Ferry clearly believes the worst-case scenario really isn’t that bad: more cap space. So cheer for the potential, I suppose.

That reality is, the next few months won't be comfortable. Pro athletes understand that trade talks take place all the time, but these were high-profile discussions, and Smith remains a polarizing player in Atlanta. The cloud of free agency will linger and the playoffs -- which seem a certainty for the Hawks -- may not overshadow that. The Hawks have a sometimes entertaining and competitive team, but they seem to be no real threat to go deep in the postseason.

Say this for Smith, who has a Hawks' logo tattooed on his left bicep: He has handled all of this remarkably well, even if privately it wore on him. He didn't sleep well the night before. Trade rumors and the loss to Miami swirled in his head.

When he woke Thursday, he phoned his agent. “I called to see if it was a good idea (to drive to practice)," he said.

At Philips Arena, he practiced hard and tried to put on a happy face, even while saying later, “There’s really nothing funny about this."

And then this: "My wife’s antsy. My dad’s antsy. Everybody’s antsy."

At least for the final 30 regular-season games, plus the playoffs, Smith isn't going anywhere. The former kid from College Park will give us more, "No! No! Yes!" moments. He will be cheered for spectacular dunks and those wonderful coast-to-coast moments. He draw groans for bad decisions, bad jump shots. It's the whole Josh Smith package.

The criticism can be excessive. As Smith told me during the 2011 playoffs,  "I know sometimes I take shots I shouldn’t. But I’m not the only one in here who takes bad shots. I just get talked about more than anybody else.”

He gets talked about a lot. For as long as he is here, that won't change.