Thursday, May 13, 2010

Hawks Will Make Qualifying Offer to Josh Childress

Somewhat hidden in this Michael Cunningham report about Mike Woodson's (officially) uncertain coaching future is this piece of hard news regarding Josh Childress:
Sund said the Hawks would extend a qualifying offer to Josh Childress, a restricted free agent who has played in Greece the past two seasons. If Childress wants to return to the NBA, he must opt out of his contract with Olympiakos by July 15 (he reportedly hasn't made up his mind).

Extending the one-year, $4.8 million qualifying offer would allow the Hawks to maintain Childress' NBA rights. If Childress doesn't accept the offer but wants to return to the NBA, the Hawks could use him in a sign-and-trade transaction.
This is a good decision. The Hawks cannot afford to lose Childress for nothing.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Seems like the discussion of Childress invariably moves to the merits of the sign-and-trade... but don't the Hawks get better by putting him in the starting lineup and moving Marvin to the bench? Does he absolutely, positively have more value as trade bait as opposed to as a Hawk?

Bret LaGree said...

I think the discussion tends toward the sign-and-trade because the default assumption is that Childress still does not wish to play for the Hawks.

jrauch said...

I thought Childress didn't want to play for Mike Woodson, rather than the Hawks generally.

I'd love to see him back starting, but paying Marvin $7 million-ish a year to sit on the bench wouldn't be a prudent use of Spirit's rather limited financial resources.

But Duck butt does need to hit the bench pronto.

Bret LaGree said...

jrauch --

His going to Greece was, I believe, motivated by a combination of money, doing something interesting, and leaving the Atlanta Hawks organization.

I got the impression (but can't find the comments, I believe made by his agent, right now that gave me this impression) he didn't trust the organization to complete a sign-and-trade. It was never clear whether that was due to mis-trust of the organization or just a legitimate concern about the power structure.

Jason Mann said...

Childress made some comments on Twitter last year right after he announced he was going back to Greece that made it clear he's not a big fan of Rick Sund. Those could have been in the heat of the moment, though.

jrauch said...

Well, two sign and trades are better than letting Joe and J-Chill walk for nothing I suppose.