Sigh. The trainwreck is narrowly avoided. Lang Whitaker for SLAM, who kind of, sort of knows these things, is reporting the Hawks will match the $58 million offer sheet tendered by the Memphis Grizzlies for forward Josh Smith. The team is "happy to have Josh return as a member of the Hawks." So there goes the Conley-Mayo-Gay-Smith-Gasol dream. Thanks for nothing, Atlanta. See you in two years when Smith demands a trade after the rest of the roster follows Josh Childress' lead and abandons ship.
Just kidding.
For Hawks fans, this is a reason to get off the bridge railing. The Grizzlies actually did them a favor, once they recovered from the mild heart attack, by giving the Hawks an offer sheet they could afford, significantly less than other free agents have signed this summer who are arguably inferior to Smith. So make sure to thank the next Grizzlies fan you meet, Atlantans. Without them, someone may have been able to reach the comparatively low threshold necessary to pry Smith away from the dysfunctional front office in the ATL. So the Hawks are .500, losing Childress to Greece, keeping Smith on the relative cheap. The Hawks needed this one, badly, and they got it.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled late summer boredom and Olympic coverage.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kinda irks me that all they have to do is match.
You drafted the guy, you developed him, you presumably know him better than any other team out there. Give him a bonus for staying with the team!
An alternative that might make more sense: match on the starting salary, but then require the home-team percentage increase each year. As I recall, the current team can offer 12% per year to retain a player while a new team would only be able to offer 10%.
J-Smoove talks about the deal, with some humor ... and a little bit of bitterness over the wait
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