Put It Back Together

Through a combination of poor play, poor coaching, and poor health, the 60-win Hawks broke in the Eastern Conference Finals. A dreadful Game 4 performance doesn't mean they shattered into an infinite number of pieces, never to be reassembled. Gallows humor was the healthiest response to the events of Game 4, but that single debacle shouldn't overshadow that the Hawks threw away a chance to win Game 1 due to their curious first-half defensive gameplan and (another playoff game defined by) a second-half medley of missed open shots. Poor game management, on the floor and from the bench, cost the Hawks Game 3 in both regulation and overtime. It was a bad week, but not one that guaranteed playoff elimination, much less one that proved or disproved much about a wildly successful regular season.

Basketball philosophy will always tie this version of the Hawks to the Spurs, but their road to an NBA championship will look much more like the Mavericks: win 50 games a year, every year for a decade, and cash in one of your chances. It will take a minor miracle for these Hawks to acquire a player the caliber of Tim Duncan or David Robinson, but it's not impossible (a healthy) Al Horford could approximate the value of early-30s Dirk Nowitzki. Surround him with affordable, productive veterans, turn at least one role player into a difference-maker through context and performance, and you've got a chance. The Hawks weren't far off this season, and the difference may simply have been the cumulative impact of injuries and wounds.

Because of all the wasted resources during the Atlanta Spirit Group's ownership -- trading away first-round picks, making bad draft picks, losing good first-round picks without compensation -- maintaining a 50-win team with an annual chance to win a title will require the basketball side to make consistent good decisions, and that those good decisions work out. The Hawks aren't in as good a place as they are today without the two trades Danny Ferry made on July 11, 2012. They were massively important deals, but they weren't a solution. They solved one problem and created opportunity, but they did not add assets.

The Hawks (once putting a permanent GM in place) will surely explore all trade* and free agency options this summer. Starting the 2015-16 season with three starters 29 or older, coming off career years (that each ended in injury), and paying the trio twice as much for the privilege isn't utopian, but it may be the best case, short-term scenario. Worrying about standing pat with a wildly successful starting five is, admittedly, a strongly pessimistic point of view. Even if it's an unnecessarily pessimistic concern, those five will require significant improvement of roster spots 8-15 to get better. 

*Considering the most enticing (non-Horford) package the Hawks would want to put together would consist of Teague or Schroder, plus Mike Scott, maybe and/or Bazemore, and Austin Daye's unguaranteed deal, they're unlikely to be involved in a blockbuster, but will surely look to shed some cheap, young, dead weight for a contributor or additional assets.

Likely having reached the limit of the value to be derived from creating wide-open threes for competent shooters (which appears to be making 35% of their 3PTAs in the regular season, possibly much less in the playoffs), the Hawks would be well served to acquire good shooters. The problem being that everybody wants good shooters and the Hawks are probably too good already to be helped by adding any one-dimensional shooters. A one-dimensional shooter isn't a significant improvement over Antic, Bazemore, or Scott. The Hawks need a wing shooter who can also defend, a big man who can shoot and defend, or or a big man who can shoot and rebound, a big man who can defend and rebound.

Theorizing out of the way, how could this work? Assume the Hawks re-sign Millsap and Carroll (which both sides want and there's probably a decent-sized band of years and money which makes everybody happy in both cases and both will likely have trade value in future years), Mike Muscala slides into Pero Antic's role, Pero re-signs to fill Elton Brand's savvy veteran who plays 500 minutes role, the Hawks draft a young wing* or playmaking four** in the first round, draft Alan Williams in the second round, plus an international prospect if they keep a second, second-round pick.

*Without having done my research, Sam Dekker, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, RJ Hunter, and Kelly Oubre are all viable candidates and the Hawks may have their pick of the lot.

**Same caveat: Kevon Looney's the only real candidate in this category who will potentially be available at 15, I think.

That gives a no-trades, free agency loss-less version of the Hawks an asset roster of:

PGs: Teague, Schroder, Mack
Wings: Korver, Carroll, Sefolosha, #15 pick, Bazemore
Bigs: Millsap, Horford, Muscala, Antic, Williams, Scott
Non-guaranteed contract for non-player: Daye
Draft rights: Walter Tavares*, Lamar Patterson
All their own draft picks
Extra future draft picks: Brooklyn's 2017 second-round pick, Miami's 2017 or 2018 second-round pick**, a top-14 protected first-round pick from Minnesota (2018-2020) OR Minnesota's 2020 and 2021 second-round picks

*I don't think Tavares comes over next season if the Hawks keep Millsap, while also trying to integrate Muscala and a first-round pick into the rotation. Then again, the Eastern Conference champion didn't get above .500 for good until mid-January so maybe next season the Hawks punt November and half of December instead of the end of March and the first half of April.

**Pick is protected from 31-40 in 2017, unprotected in 2018.

There's probably enough there at the margins to consolidate a few pieces into a real contributor that's superfluous to or under-appreciated by another team, while also creating player development opportunities. The flip side is that there's probably nothing there that will have multiple teams picking up the phone to instigate a bidding war, though the Hawks will surely listen to any team willing to overpay for anyone or anything, even Horford.

Even if the Hawks lack a clear path forward in terms of personnel decisions, the organization has a very clear idea* of how they will achieve success. However, that clarity is no guarantee of success. There's no way to plan so well as to eliminate injuries, fully control developmental curves (for players, coaches, and the front office), or always overcome the other team's desire and ability to beat you in a seven-game series.

*And make no mistake: that idea begins with acquiring a superstar before, failing that, working its way down to something that resembles the 2014-15 Hawks.

It's difficult, in the wake of a clear vision of exactly how the Hawks reach the NBA Finals, a vision subsequently proven profoundly out of touch with actual events, to embrace the uncertainty of the offseason, with its countless actors, seen and unseen, conflicting agendas, and strange bedfellows. Whatever anticipatory comfort one finds takes the form of trusting in the Hawks knowing what they want to be and the entire organization's ability to learn from their mistakes and shortcomings.

Hawks Sign Willie Green

I must say that, having become inured to his constant Willie Green-ness and being somewhat thankful that he was some other blogger's problem, I hadn't noticed that Green has stopped turning the ball over. So he's got that going for him. Related, the frontcourt has copious offensive rebounding opportunities to look forward to.

Over the age of 30, lacking three-point range, and unable to get to the foul line consistently, Green shouldn't face much of a learning curve in adapting to the Hawks' system. Per John Hollinger (via Hoopdata, presumably), more than half of Green's field goal attempts were long twos.

If Green gets a shot at some of Jamal Crawford's minutes, he'll be a better rebounder and defender than Crawford without being good at either endeavor. If Green gets a shot at some of Jamal Crawford's minutes, we might find ourselves constructing sentences involving the phrase "Mike Bibby wasn't that bad."

Pape Sy might not just be the most interesting reserve guard on this team (until Kirk Hinrich returns), he might be the most talented basketball player. Willie Green and Jannero Pargo are what happen when you can't afford to fill out your roster with guaranteed minimum contracts.

Hawks Sign Jannero Pargo

Fun with the Hoopinion archives, from August 13, 2008:

I thought signing Jannero Pargo was a bad idea but leave it to the Atlanta Hawks to take an unappealing hypothetical transaction and do one worse by making an unexpected actual move that's far more dispiriting: signing Flip Murray to block Acie Law IV.

If believing in Acie Law's potential doesn't take you back, then remember a time before Mike Woodson revealed himself as the lead guard whisperer, a time before I believed that every team should have someone like Jannero Pargo, an in-case-of-emergency-break-glass gunner employed for the express purpose of shooting as often as possible at irregular intervals over the course of the season in games where a conventional, idealistic approach has failed.

Granted, the idea of using a roster spot on such a player assumes fairly idealistic roster construction as a whole, something this Hawks team lacks. Pargo figures to be the backup point guard until Kirk Hinrich returns, getting regular playing time to combine his trademark inefficient scoring with his lack of playmaking ability. But, considering how difficult it is for the rest of the Hawks reserves to score, it's not like a truer, younger point guard such as Donald Sloan figured to have much success creating shots for his fellow reserves.

The pressure only grows on Larry Drew to expand his ability to wring value out of the one-dimensional Jason Collins across the entirety of the bottom half of his roster.

Hawks Lose Exhibition Opener

Boxscore

• Nobody got hurt.
• Marvin Williams has a strong head of hair.
• Jannero Pargo's joining the Hawks tomorrow, undermining what interest one might have had in watching Donald Sloan and Brad Wanamaker tonight.
• Since basically nobody coming of the bench for the Hawks can score, much less create his own shot, the team's lack of depth is going to appear exaggerated if the reserves play as a unit.
  
• Jerry Stackhouse has nothing left. Hasn't for years.

Hoops Analyst: Schreiber: Atlanta Hawks Transactions

Harlan Schreiber weighs in on the Tracy McGrady and Vladimir Radmanovic signings:

Did you know that T-Mac is only 32? In a part-time role, McGrady wasn’t actually that bad for the Pistons either. The problem is that one of the most exciting players of the 2000s is now, at best, an average bench guy who can’t really get to the line and is a decent shooter. On a playoff-level team, T-Mac’s presence as a cheap filler will have value, assuming the knees hold up well enough. The hope, though, is that McGrady can replace Jamal Crawford off the bench. At first blush this seems silly. McGrady can’t move very well these days and Crawford got ridiculously hot at times. Looking at the advanced metrics, though, T-Mac actually had a slightly higher PER than Crawford (14.9 to 14.2) and shot exactly the same from three (.341%). Does this mean that McGrady is a more valuable player? Well…no. Part of Crawford’s value was the ability to generate tons of shots (13.7 shots and 4.1 free throws per-36 versus 11.0 and 2.8 for McGrady). The Hawks are downgrading on 2010-11 stats (though not by as much as you would think). Still when you combine the volume with the possibility that McGrady might get hurt again or continue his steep decline from his peak, there is plenty of risk that the Hawks will have a big hole at backup sixth man.

As for Radmanovic, he has demonstrated that he will never be a regular but is also useful in a bench role. While Vlad still can’t play any defense and is thus not a viable starter, he will help the Hawks replace the tons of threes lost when Crawford doesn’t come back. In short, the Hawks’ filler is useful but has some holes.

It's going to be heart-in-mouth time whenever a Hawks player turns an ankle this season, but lack of depth is the price you pay for not planning long-term and/or willfully limiting your cap flexibility.

Hawks Sign Vladimir Radmanovic, Politely Ask Him To Go Stand in the Corner

You're not going to get good all-around players for the league minimum and, if you focus your acquisitive efforts on guys in their thirties, you're not looking for potential. The Hawks aren't looking to discover* Gary Neal or Reggie Williams or Anthony Morrow. Instead, they're looking at what guys once were, and hoping that, for another eight or nine hundred minutes, what they are is a reasonable, if faded, facsimile of what they once were.

Vladimir Radmanovic can make threes. The Hawks were 17th in the league in three-pointers made an 18th in the league in three-point field goal percentage. As long as others create shots for him, he should knock them down. He won't turn the ball over. Signing him doesn't signal a move toward a defensive-oriented philosophy, but he's a decent defensive rebounder for a stretch-four and anything that improves the Hawks' spacing will be an improvement over last season.

*Brad Wanamaker, Donald Sloan, please feel free to prove me wrong.

ProBasketballTalk: Mahoney: Hawks show uncharacteristic sensibility with signing of Tracy McGrady

The NBA needn't be officially open for business for me to take an unpopular and possibly incorrect position. Bronn made a case for Tracy McGrady in the comments of that post and Rob Mahoney compliments the Hawks for signing McGrady at Pro Basketball Talk today:

McGrady may not have the ability to dribble-penetrating ability that Atlanta so desperately needs, but he’s an incredibly cost-efficient addition capable of hedging against the seemingly inevitable loss of Jamal Crawford. The Hawks aren’t in a position where re-signing Crawford makes financial sense; they already have $66 million in salary committed for this season and $62 million committed next year, meaning that Crawford’s deal would likely push a solid — but firmly non-contending — team over the luxury tax line. Even beyond the practical consideration of overpaying a dwindling, inefficient scorer like Crawford, the financial realities for a tax-averse team like Atlanta make a re-signing a virtual impossibility.

Such is the reality for a franchise that presented Joe Johnson with a golden effigy on the first day of free agency last season, invested in Marvin Williams to the tune of $8 million a year, and took every shortcut there is to take in team construction.

All of which makes McGrady — who will join the Hawks on a one-year, minimum salary deal — an oddly reasonable signing.

...

For the league minimum, this is very likely the best the Hawks could possibly do. McGrady isn’t what he once was (and certainly isn’t Crawford), but this is a smart, economical move for a team with such a cluttered cap sheet.

John Hollinger's player profile of McGrady (Insider) provides further reason for measured optimism:

McGrady was an intriguing player to watch last season because of the huge variance in his play from night to night. There were games when his legs were back and it looked like the old days -- soaring over defenders for jumpers, driving and finding open men, or dunking at the rim. Other nights you wanted to run out on the court and give him a Segway to get around.

If Larry Drew can spot McGrady with anything approaching the alacrity with which he used Jason Collins for much of last season, the Hawks may have another interesting low-minute impact player. Maybe McGrady's comeback season in Detroit suffered from too much playing time and, if he doesn't have 1600 good minutes in him, he has 800.

Then there's the chance that signing McGrady signals something of a philosophical shift for the Hawks. Collins, reportedly, will return on a third consecutive one-year deal. Earl Watson, his value heavy on the defensive end as well, may serve as the injured Kirk Hinrich's understudy. And trading Jamal Crawford for Ronnie Brewer, whether it comes to pass or not, is emphatically not a typical move for this franchise.

Now, any or all of these signings come with a price. Namely, that none of these guys can shoot. But the Hawks should, with Josh Smith and Al Horford and (a healthy) Joe Johnson and (an on-court) Jeff Teague should be able to get away with having a defense-first player on the court at all times. Smith and Horford, in particular, have carried a heavy defensive workload to keep the Hawks a league average defensive club the past two seasons. Who knows what they could accomplish with a little help on the perimeter? A lighter defensive workload might even make a positive impact for them, and the team, on the offensive end.

ESPN.com: Smith: Atlanta Hawks Agree To One-Year Deal With Tracy McGrady

Stephen A. Smith reports that the Atlanta Hawks have agreed to a one-year deal with Tracy McGrady for, natch, the veteran's minimum. McGrady's physical decline and his accompanying, increasingly impotent on-court performance makes me feel sad and old. And now he's a Hawk.

Let's go down the Hawks' free agent checklist...

Cheap? Yes.

Old? 32 years worth, not counting the history of back and knee problems.

A recognizable name? Yes, though signing McGrady represents something of a breakthrough for the Hawks as he's recognizable for being a once great basketball player rather than going to high school or college in Atlanta or being the nephew of the city's greatest professional basketball player.

Little reason for optimism evident in his recent performance record? Yes. McGrady had something of a bounce-back season, more due to how horrific his 2009-10 season was than anything special he achieved in 2010-11.

Tracy McGrady scored at a lower rate than Marvin Williams last season. McGrady set a career low in usage rate and a career high in turnover rate. He's no sort of replacement for Jamal Crawford and I say that as one who thinks Jamal Crawford shouldn't be replaced in a straight like-for-like (but cheaper) exchange. Maybe McGrady is a better* option at the 2 than Damien Wilkins when Larry Drew wants to go big and McGrady will certainly out-rebound Crawford (and probably Joe Johnson, too), but any positive contributions from McGrady will constitute more of a feel good story than reasonable expectations, like playing a little better than Damien Wilkins, being met.

*Optimism alert: The Pistons were measurably less bad defensively with McGrady on the court last season and he made box score defensive plays at something approaching his career rate.

The Free Agent Clearinghouse Post

At SBNation, Tom Ziller provides a list of all 2012 NBA free agents, restricted and unrestricted.

At Baskerball-Reference.com, Neil Paine lists all the guys who are playing overseas but do not have an opt-out clause. (In related news, the 2010-11 Season Review: Josh Powell is on deck.)

Keeping in mind the salary cap limitations (barring an unexpected leap into the realm of NBA luxury tax payers) the Hawks have created for themselves means they might need to include a a rookie free agent or two in their December acquisitions, speculate away.

A Happy Thought In Sad Anticipation of the Lockout

I'd have been much more invested in the minicamp the Hawks held had the coming lockout not felt impending and inevitable.

Here's hoping this desire of Larry Drew's comes to pass whenever business resumes:

"We need knock-down shooters. Not the guys that are capable of making shots. We need guys that they are open, they get that ball, the opposition is saying, ‘Uh-oh.’ Those type guys."

The strong side of Atlanta's half-court will usually struggle against better defenses if the weak side of Atlanta's half-court offense consists of Marvin Williams and Josh Smith* spotting up, waiting to get the ball and take a shot the defense is all too glad for them to take.

*Even Al Horford, good though he was at knocking down mid-range-to-long two-pointers, wasn't, in and of himself, improving Atlanta's offense that much, compared to the league, by consistently knocking the least efficient shot in basketball.

Acquiring some personnel better suited to spreading the floor and Joe Johnson making a reasonable percentage of his three-point attempts probably gets the Hawks back to an above average offense even if nothing else changes for the better. Let the "knock-down shooters" be this off-season's "bulky" center.

Atlanta Hawks Sign Damien Wilkins

The Atlanta Hawks signed Damien Wilkins to provide nominal depth on the wing in Joe Johnson's absence. Wilkins will get the pro-rated veteran's minimum contract, which will put the Hawks within approximately $760,000 of the luxury tax line.

Why did the Hawks add Damien Wilkins?

Larry Drew:

"I think we’ll get a hard-nosed player, a guy who plays hard. A good defensive player who gives us a guy with size that can defend the [shooting guard] and the [small forward] spot. I’m more focused on his energy and the toughness that he brings and he’s a solid defensive player. That’s something you can never have enough of. We are very pleased to have him on board."

So, is there any evidence that Wilkins is a good defensive player? According to Basketball-Reference.com, Wilkins has never posted a Defensive Rating better than 110 and that came in limited minutes in 2004-05. As a point of reference, last season Joe Johnson had a defensive rating of 110. Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford both had defensive ratings of 111, the same as Wilkins each of the last four seasons.

A player's defensive rating is highly dependent on the quality of a team's defense. Wilkins was part of the league's third-worst (or 28th-best, if you're a glass half full type) defense in Minnesota last season, the 20th-best defense in Oklahoma city in 2008-09, and four Seattle teams that never ranked higher than 22nd in the league in defense.

Perhaps Wilkins kept those bad defenses from being even worse. BasketballValue.com has on/off data for Wilkins from the past three seasons (this is defense so a negative differential is good):

Season	On	Off	Diff
2007-08	111.4	107.8	+3.6
2008-09	108.7	108.9	-0.2
2009-10	111.1	111.8	-0.7

82games.com has on/off data going further back:

Season	On	Off	Diff
2004-05	114.1	109.9	+4.2
2005-06	114.1	116.5	-2.4
2006-07	113.4	109.9	+3.5

The only time Damien Wilkins has had a measurable, positive impact on his team's defense he played for a legendarily bad defensive team. Still, one can find references to Wilkins's defensive aptitude. Kevin Pelton and Bradford Doolittle have, respectively, referred to Wilkins as an "above-average" and a "solid" defender in the past two editions of Pro Basketball Prospectus despite Wilkins grading out at -3 (on a scale that runs from +5 (good) to -5 (bad)) according to Doolittle's NBAPET skill ratings in both books.

As for the rest of his game, Wilkins is a poor shooter from everywhere except the free throw line, an average-at-best rebounder compared to shooting guards, a significantly below average rebounder compared to small forwards, and has been more likely to turn the ball over than earn an assist over his six-year career.

But hey, he's 30 years old, and is a recognizable name in at least two cities, one of which still has an NBA team.

In short, the addition of Wilkins is unlikely to help anyone other than the guy who sells Pape Sy his suits.

The Point Forward: Lowe: Hawks Follow Mistake With Good Deal

Zach Lowe commends the Atlanta Hawks for extending Al Horford but, quite reasonably, ponders what the team could do to improve:

Al Horford is off the list of potential 2011 free agents. The 24-year-old big man agreed to a five-year, $60 million extension with the Hawks on Monday, earning him the same money as Chicago’s Joakim Noah, about the same as teammate Josh Smith and a tad more than some other quality bigs, including Andrea Bargnani. And the Hawks have managed to lock up Horford, just 24, without overpaying him. With an average annual salary of $12 million, Horford will make less than fellow bigs David Lee, LaMarcus Aldridge and Emeka Okafor.

It’s a fair deal. Unfortunately, like everything else the Hawks do for the next half-decade, it must be viewed in the context of the disastrous $124 million contract they gave 29-year-old (!) Joe Johnson just a few months ago. With Horford locked up, the Hawks, as constituted now, won’t have any significant cap room until after the 2013-2014 season. The cap this season is nearly $58 million, and though a significant salary rollback in the new collective bargaining agreement might give the Hawks a little bit of relief next season, it’s hard to envision a rollback large enough to change their cap situation in any major way.

...

So, essentially, this is the team. And it’s a good team — one capable of winning 50 games every season, and one that should see Smith and Horford get better over the next few seasons. The Hawks are counting on that sort of internal improvement to make them a title contender and not just a solid playoff team. They’ll need Marvin Williams, under contract through 2013-14, to find a more varied offensive game even as he continues to lose minutes this season to Jamal Crawford. They’ll need Jeff Teague to be a competent NBA starting point guard next season. And they’ll need to be creative with the draft and the mid-level exception, which they did not use last summer.

The Hawks’ biggest fault was re-signing Johnson to a max deal. The argument that “we had to sign Johnson or lose him for nothing” just doesn’t hold water. Teams never have to do anything. There is always an option, even if that option is losing Johnson for nothing, or maybe just a trade exception and a future first-round pick. Because those options are better than the alternative: crippling your team’s cap situation for a half-decade.

AJC.com: Cunningham: Hawks, Horford Agree to 5-year, $60 Million Contract Extension

Michael Cunningham reports that the Atlanta Hawks have agreed to a 5-year, $60 million contract extension with Al Horford:

Atlanta’s All-Star center and his agent, Arn Tellem, met with the team this afternoon finalize the deal, which also is expected to include performance incentives. The sides had until the end of business today to reach an agreement or Horford would have become a restricted free agent next summer.

“It happened like I’ve been predicting–down to the wire,” Horford said today after practice. “When we finally kind of agreed on everything, I was super excited.”

Horford’s deal is similar to the contract extension signed by Bulls center Joakim Noah, whom he teamed with to win two NCAA championships at the University of Florida. The Hawks selected Horford with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2007 draft while Noah was picked No. 9 by Chicago.

The Hawks and Tellem opened negotiations at the start of training camp but there was little movement in talks as recently as two weeks ago. With the deadline approaching, the two sides met this weekend and worked out a deal.

“From the moment he arrived in Atlanta, Al has been a large part of our success,” Hawks GM Rick Sund said in a statement released by the team. “The winning tradition he brought to the franchise as a rookie out of Florida has extended to three consecutive playoff seasons in a Hawks uniform. In addition, he was deservedly recognized as an All-Star last year, and we certainly look forward to his continued development as we move forward.”

Horford was eligible for an extension for as many as five years and as much as $82 million under the terms of the current collective bargaining agreement, which expires in June. The final terms of the extension could possibly be altered when the league and players agree to a new CBA but Horford would have a contract that must be honored.

Horford has said all along he hoped to sign an extension because he likes Atlanta and his teammates and believes the team is headed in the right direction.

“It’s great to be able to get it done and have peace of mind,” Horford said. “It makes me able to come out and just focus on basketball, which is my priority to begin with. So I’m happy about that part.”

The Hawks now have eight players under contract for next season. Depending on the details of Horford's extension, the money due those eight players will be somewhere north of $60 million. The 2010-11 salary cap is $58.044 million.

TrueHoop: Stein: Ten days to go for Class of '07 extensions

Marc Stein updates the status of Al Horford's contract extension:

Despite persistent chatter in recent days that Horford and the Hawks have made little recent progress in negotiations, sources close to the situation maintain that a deal before the deadline remains probable, given Horford’s status as a borderline All-Star big man … and the fact that Horford is being represented in negotiations by the same agent (Arn Tellem) who squeezed the biggest contract of the summer ($123.7 million over six seasons) out of the Hawks for Joe Johnson. (Word is reigning Sixth Man Award winner Jamal Crawford, meanwhile, has to wait until Horford’s window passes before Atlanta seriously entertains the idea of signing Crawford to the extension he seeks.)

FanHouse: Tomasson: Rookie Contract Extension Deadline Extended

Good news if one assumes the Hawks will never pass up an opportunity to take a little more time to make a decision:

NBA teams will have one extra day this fall to make what could be some tough decisions on contract extensions.

NBA senior vice president of basketball communications Tim Frank confirmed Thursday that teams have until Nov. 1, rather than the usual Oct. 31, to make decisions on rookie contract extensions. The extra day is because Oct. 31 falls on a Sunday, so the deadline reverts to the next business day.

The deadline affects teams deciding whether to pick up the third- and fourth-year contract options of players drafted in the 2009 and 2008 first rounds and whether to sign players selected in the 2007 first round to extensions or let them become restricted free agents next summer.

Most prominently, this affects Al Horford but Jeff Teague's third-year option falls under this provision as well.

Yahoo!: Wojnarowski: Dampier Ponders Free Agent Options

Adrian Wojnarowski reports on Erick Dampier's possible destinations:

Free-agent center Erick Dampier(notes) is finalizing a list of teams he’ll meet with in the near future, a league source told Yahoo! Sports.

Dampier’s list is expected to be topped by the Miami Heat and Houston Rockets, as well as a potential sleeper: the Atlanta Hawks. Dampier still hasn’t decided how many teams he wants to meet with, but there are multiple suitors for him.

This presents a dilemma. On the one hand, there's the opportunity to add a fifth center to the roster, though this one's 35 years old and possibly as good as Zaza Pachulia. On the other hand, every dollar over $1,423,195 million spent on Dampier this season will cost double or necessitate a salary dump before the final day of the regular season.

(HT: Royce Young)

ESPN.com (Insider): Ford: Offseason Grades

Chad Ford gives the Atlanta Hawks a grade of C for their off-season decisions:

The Hawks surprised just about everyone this summer by giving Johnson a max contract. The conventional wisdom had the Bulls, Knicks or some other team with major cap room sneaking in and stealing him away. In the short term, it was a great move by the Hawks. In the long term? The franchise may really regret it.

A six-year, $123 million contract is huge for a 29-year-old guard who absolutely fell apart in the playoffs versus Orlando in May. The deal could also have some long-term effects on the Hawks' ability to pay free agents going forward. Al Horford will be looking for a big extension this fall. Can the Hawks really afford three max players?

The team's other move was more Hawks-like. They let head coach Mike Woodson go and replaced him with the cheapest possible alternative, assistant Larry Drew, who is an unknown at this point. But hiring a head coach with no experience is a strange move for a team that is trying to take the next step in the playoffs.

It's the joint-10th highest mark Ford gives out to an Eastern Conference team.

Atlanta Hawks Sign Etan Thomas

The working hypothesis in the Atlanta Hawks front office appears to be that, if you get the chance to follow up your inexplicable decision to re-sign Jason Collins to be your third-string center by signing a free agent center six months older than Collins who has played 1082 fewer minutes than Collins over the previous three seasons to create competition for the role of third-string center, you have to make that move.

Enter Etan Thomas.

That difference in playing time isn't entirely fair to Thomas, as he missed the 2007-08 season after undergoing open heart surgery and Thomas was useful more recently than Collins (that being the 2006-07 rather than 2005-06 season). Therefore, let it be noted that, since his return from open heart surgery, Thomas has, over two seasons, played 90 more minutes in 6 fewer games than Collins.

Thomas was unproductive in limited minutes in each of the last two seasons but not, it should be further noted, unproductive to the comical extent to which Collins was unproductive. Still, with the Wizards in 2008-09, Thomas set career lows in scoring rate, eFG%, OR%, DR%, steal rate, turnover rate, usage, and PER. With the Thunder in 2009-10, Thomas set new career lows in scoring rate, eFG%, TS%, OR%, DR%, assist rate, usage, and PER. Oh, and not that it's statistically significant given how little he played, but the Wizards allowed 4.5 more points per 100 possessions with Thomas on the floor in 2008-09 and the Thunder allowed almost 2 more points per 100 possessions with Thomas on the floor last season.

Looking at his career stats, there's a sharp line drawn between the useful role player Thomas was in his 20s and the guy in his 30s who could play or produce for either a terrible team or a good team following open heart surgery. And now he's a Hawk. And now the Hawks are $854,389 closer to the luxury tax line. And still the roster includes neither a proper backup for Marvin Williams nor a guard with a track record of staying in front of opponents.

Poll: Who Should the Hawks Sign For the 13th Roster Spot?

Earlier today, I linked to the ShamSports post about available 2010-11 NBA free agents.

Michael Cunningham reports the Hawks have "some degree of interest" in Francisco Elson, Brian Skinner, and Josh Boone.

Those options are uninspiring enough for me to try to talk myself into Pape Sy filling the final roster spot.

What say you, dear reader? I've embedded a poll with 10 options for that final roster spot. Some reasonable, some fanciful, some all-too-plausible. If you don't feature any of the selections, mark it "other" and please specify your alternative in the comments.

Who Should the Hawks Sign For the 13th Roster Spot?
	Josh Boone
	Francisco Elson
	Nick Fazekas
	Trey Gilder
	Randolph Morris
	Garret Siler
	Brian Skinner
	Pape Sy
	Kyle Weaver
	Mario West
	other (please specify)
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Credit Where Credit Is Due

Why didn't the Hawks sign Shaquille O'Neal? Michael Cunningham reports:

I’ve been told that Atlanta wouldn’t budge on giving Shaq a starting nod over Al, who is after all still only 24-years old and an All-Star. Shaq believes he will get the starting nod over Jermaine O’Neal in Boston as Kendrick Perkins rehabs from his knee injury.

Atlanta also wasn’t willing to pay Shaq more than the minimum and that was a sticking point for him. He didn’t want to sign for the minimum when the Hawks had their bi-annual and mid-level exceptions available because of the perception that would create–as in the Hawks could have paid him more but didn’t. That’s not the case with Boston, which had neither of those exceptions and so could only give him the minimum.

The big guy still has his pride.

Sound decision making, though, I have to deduct a couple of points for the answer not being "Because there's little reason to believe that Shaquille O'Neal will be more productive than Zaza Pachulia next season, taking minutes away from Horford, Josh Smith, and Pachulia would not lead to significant improvement, and we have far a more pressing concern in needing to improve our perimeter defense."

The latter point is clearly not a concern in-house. Cunningham also reports that the Hawks are looking at adding Francisco Elson, Brian Skinner, or Josh Boone to fill the 13th roster spot. Elson and Skinner would be marginal improvements over Jason Collins in the (apparently) crucial* third-string center role. Boone, at least, could reasonably be expected to outperform Josh Powell.

You may be asking, what about Garret Siler?

Well, Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside makes the case for Siler:

Siler is probably the most obvious player to include on this list since Cunningham suggested there is "some interest" in the 6-foot-11, 300-plus pound big man out of Augusta State. Though Cunningham suggested that "he's got a lot to prove after a bad showing at Summer League," I'd like to counter that THE DUDE MADE 75% OF HIS SHOT ATTEMPTS AND PULLED DOWN 3.8 BOARDS IN JUST 14 MINUTES OF ACTION. I've been driving the Siler bandwagon for awhile, sure, but the kid deserves an opportunity. He has great size, soft hands, scores as efficiently as anyone and seems to be willing to do whatever it takes to get an opportunity - I mean, he runs the court very well for a guy his size.

Siler is very efficient but because he's big and slow and can't create his own shot, he's not especially productive. And that's in NCAA Division 2 and the Chinese League. He did appear slimmer in Las Vegas and I'd rather the Hawks anchor the bench with Siler than Collins but he's probably not an untapped resource.

As for the other four names on Schroeder's list of non-retreads, I whole-heartedly support the idea of signing Pops Mensah-Bonsu or Alade Aminu (though I've still no reason to believe he's not going to play for Elan Chalon next season) while signing Chris Hunter or Kurt Looby would likely be, relative to Collins, Powell et al., more interesting though no more useful.

*Almost 5% of the Hawks' regular season games will be against Dwight Howard, after all.