In July 2012, just 17 days after Danny Ferry was handed control of the Hawks’ front office, Joe Johnson was traded to Brooklyn for five players, a first-round pick that may morph into a lottery selection this summer, a second-round pick in 2016 and a trade exemption that would allow them to fit Kyle Korver into the team payroll.
Regardless of what you may think of Ferry and the circumstances that led to him being jettisoned into a sports-management abyss, the current/former general manager probably deserves some kind of commendation for that deal alone. (I would suggest a statue, but I’m pretty sure the Dominique Wilkins’ statue would elbow the Ferry statue in the back of the head.)
The Johnson trade sent the loudest possible message to the franchise and the city that a major changeover was about to take place — in makeup, mindset and possibly direction. Nobody heard that message any clearer than Johnson, the oft-maligned central figure in the deal.
“The trade was a good thing,” Johnson said Saturday night, before the Hawks’ game against Brooklyn. “Obviously I didn’t have any control over it. But it was good for me to have a change. When you have a new GM and he comes in and he decides I’m the first player he’s going to start with, I’m like: OK, go ahead. Move me. Get me on out of here. You don’t need to have me around if you don’t want me.”
He said he had “heard some things here and there” about a possible trade but never from Ferry.
“I was coming to the gym every day because one of my good friends was on the summer-league team,” he said. “I saw him every day.”
There’s potential irony looming in this Hawks season. They have clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, thereby setting up a first-round playoff matchup against the No. 8 seed. The most likely candidates: Brooklyn, Miami and Boston, who were separated by a game and a half going into Saturday.
A Hawks-Nets series potentially could be great theater. But for two reasons, that’s probably not the Hawks’ first choice: 1) After circling the drain for most of the season, Brooklyn had won six consecutive and 10 of 12 before Saturday; 2) If the Nets miss the playoffs, the first-round pick from the Johnson trade becomes a lottery pick.
Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer acknowledged the advantages of the Nets missing the playoffs. He has been resting starters regularly over the past few weeks, but all of the regulars were in the lineup against the Nets at Philips Arena and logic suggests all will play again when the teams meet Wednesday in Brooklyn.
But Budenholzer’s comments walked the line: “You would be naive, and nobody would believe you, if you said you weren’t aware of it. If I could write my own script, of course we’d rather have a higher pick. But we’re going to play the games and compete. Just because you say you want the higher pick doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”
That’s not Johnson’s concern. Three years ago, he welcomed the change of scenery. He wasn’t a bad player for the Hawks. He did average 21 points and play in six All-Star games in seven seasons. But he became a lightning rod for the team’s dysfunction and playoff failures, especially after team owners, visionaries that they were, gave the shooting guard one of the dumbest contracts in professional sports history: $123,658,089, give or take a mallet to the head.
Hard to believe, but Johnson probably has encountered more dysfunction in Brooklyn than he did in Atlanta. Bad ownership. An ever-changing roster of overpaid and mismatched pieces. A misguided belief by management that two ancient players, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, could resuscitate them. Four coaches in Johnson’s three seasons.
“That’s the most difficult part — playing for so many different coaches, in so many different systems, you don’t get the chance to develop the chemistry that you need to be an elite team,” he said. “That’s why we’ve been uphill climbing.”
He said he never expected to finish his career in Atlanta, but he doesn’t harbor any resentment.
“I still live here, I just don’t play for the Hawks,” he said. “I’m happy for them because a couple of guys (Al Horford and Jeff Teague) are still on the team from when I was here. To see them have that success is very rewarding.”
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