This article has been submitted by Trevor Smith
To: Management Group, Atlanta Hawks
Thank you.
Thank you for being the biggest joke in NBA. Thank you for operating a professional team that makes the Clippers look perceptive and organized by comparison. Thank you for staring relevance and notability in the face and somehow still managing to bring forth embarrassment, misfortune and humiliation instead. In other words, thanks for being you
In allowing us to sign Josh Childress to a three-year, $20 million contract, you have showed once again why your organization is annually in the running for the title of “Worst Governed Franchise in American Sports”. This is the NBA. Talented players are not supposed to leave during the prime of their career to play in Europe, no matter how strong the Euro is. This is the best league in the world. One would leave only when a team such as yourselves show them complete lack of respect and interest during the negotiation process under the belief that their status as a ‘restricted free agent’ means the player does not have options. Evidently, they do. Ask Delfino, Brezec, or Navarro. Perhaps even The Machine will be leaving Stateside if the Lakers do not give him more cash. But the difference is that those players are not starters, much less stars, and the majority of them are not young. They are either from Europe or have played their already, and for them being the star on a European roster outranks being a 9th man in the NBA. But Childress was a 6th man, and sometimes starter, and is an American. His leaving sends a deafening message (as might Delonte West’s in Cleveland): That your organization’s in-house issues are such that you can’t even keep a young Yankee around is fantastically pathetic.
Even in the NHL, players only decamp from the league for Russia if they are at the end of their career (Jagr) or have zero market value (Emery). Meanwhile, you somehow have managed to send packing a 25-year old player whose as a sixth man had a 17.84 PER ranking (we Greeks love Hollinger).
Only you could turn a surprising playoff push and a memorable duel with the eventual-champion Celtics into drivel and crap months later. Only you could hate your fanbase, lowly that is it, that much. So my hat is off to you gentlemen. You have set a new low.
I leave you to wallow in your own crap-ulence.
Signed,
Socratis Kokkalis
President, Olympiacos B.C.
#1 by stu on July 28th, 2008
Does anyone know if the kid who was going to go to Zona, Brandon Jennings (played with the highest fade ever in the McDonald’s game) has signed with a Euro team yet?
#2 by Patrick on July 28th, 2008
Jennings signed with Pallacanestro Virtus Roma of Italian Serie A within the last week or so. Let’s hope he keeps the fade.
#3 by Rob Shaw on July 29th, 2008
The Hawks offered 5 years 33 million, which should be enough to sign your 6th man and its more than Sasha Vujacic got from LA.
#4 by khandor on July 29th, 2008
Au contraire, the Hawks made a wise move this go-round not opening up the bank for Josh Childress, a non-elite level player in the NBA, unnecessarily. Role players, like Childress, SHOULD NOT be making $20 mil/yr in the NBA. In the Euroleague, he may well become the goto scorer (or top rebounder) for his own team, as their #1 import, but there is no way a serviceable but unspectacular player like Josh Childress can ever fill a marquee role on a top flight NBA roster.
#5 by khandor on July 29th, 2008
sorry, should read as … $20 mil over 3 years
#6 by TSmith on July 30th, 2008
I agree in theory with you that a 6th man, non-elite player should not make $20mil over 3 years, as that seems to be way too much relative that his value…
That said, that is the going market rate for a quality, unspectacular player in today’s NBA with the salary-cap sitting where it does and always ready to increase. Ideally, role players shouldn’t make that kind of money. But they do. Everywhere in the league (for a look closer to home, take Kapono’s contract for example).
I wholehearted agree that teams have overpaid in normative terms for not-really-elite players the past two summers (Brand and Lewis) as well as for 6th and 7th guys, but in relative terms, compared to money earned elsewhere in the league but players of the same value, its less overpaying and more economies of scale for today’s NBA where the cap (and profits) continue to rise.
#7 by TSmith on July 30th, 2008
For what its worth though, I think Marvin Williams gives them a lot of what Childress does already. This was meant more to be about what this says about the Hawks in terms of disorder than to defend Childress as a great player (he’s not).
#8 by khandor on July 30th, 2008
Big difference though in overpaying for players like Rashard Lewis and Elton Brand, in comparison to Josh Childress.
Understand your point about the Hawks seeming disorganization … but, to cite them in this regard, when they are making a sound decision salary AND basketball wise, in a sense nullifies your point, cause Atlanta is NOT acting that way in this specific instance.
Childress just isn’t worth the $$$.
#9 by khandor on July 30th, 2008
e.g. in comparison, this is a solid move for the Hawks … http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/53800/20080729/atlanta_signs_maurice_evans/
#10 by Blake Murphy on July 30th, 2008
While I understand the argument that Childress would have been overpaid by NBA standards at 3 years/$20M, what I’m more concerned is the precedent that has been set this offseason - if you’re not going to get mid-level NBA money in the NBA, you can get it to be a star in Europe. Childress’ deal is extremely favorable in that he can opt out after each year (to return to the NBA a UFA) and because he should be one of the best players overseas (his all-around game, versatility, and basketball IQ make it certain). The Hawks will miss him, but if I’m thanking the Hawks for anything on behalf of the EuroLeague, it’s for letting NBA players know that EuroLeague basketball is much much more than Russian League Hockey.
#11 by khandor on July 31st, 2008
To make a similar comparison …
It wasn’t that many years ago where the English First Division was seen by most knowledgeable football fans to be the strongest in the world … e.g. birthplace of the game and all that.
Then, as the global migration continued to expand and the game spread around the world, other leagues like the Italian First Division gradually raised in popularity and in terms of overall skill to rival then surpass what was happening exclusively in Britain.
Then, as the World Cup moved into full blown and TV kicked in, exposing international stars like Pele, Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Ardilles, Maradona, etc., to audiences around the globe … it was only a matter of decades until what we see today is a truly global experience where the BEST PLAYERS IN WORLD are quite literally to be found from every corner of the planet.
Now switch to basketball.
What was once a US-centric game is no more … and it is only a matter of time before the NBA is but one League within a global sphere of many that are all perceived to be high calibre places to play professional basketball.
It may take as many as 50-75 years but as sure as night follows day it is going to happen … because the appeal of basketball, as a simply game played with but a ball and 2 raside hoops, is similar (and in some ways even more powerful) to that of football.
PS. Doesn’t change the fact that, at $20 mil for 3 seasons … I think Josh Childress would have been overpaid by the Atlanta Hawks.