Philadelphia really needed to keep Andre Iguodala at just about all costs, both in order to contend for a title and to avoid another season of "Willie Green, NBA starter." The money's high, but the 76ers hardly had better options. If Iguodala was planning on holding out for $80 million, well Molly just pay the man.

Of course, contracts don't get signed inside a vacuum. (That'd be awesome, though! I'd have a use for my astronaut pen.) In looking at the greater landscape, we can assess how much milk Philly got for its salt. The following graph shows each Class of '04 product whom signed a contract (this summer or last) in excess of $50 million. Average salary is shown in green. We descend from Dwight Howard at $15.8 million to Andris Biedrins at $10.5 million. The players' 2007-08 PER adjoins and is shown in (a pitiful approximation of) the players' team colors.



Iguodala received the second richest contract in this class. But based on 2007-08, four players who signed a smaller deal -- Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, Josh Smith and Biedrins -- are as good as or better than Iguodala. In other words, the Sixers didn't get great value for Iguodala. Consider that Martin is a measure better and will make $11.5 million less over the next five years. Smith is two years younger than 'Dala, basically even on production today, and will make $10 million less over the next six years.

It's worth noting that the two best values among the Class of '04 elite -- Jefferson and Martin -- were signed last summer. So much for the unassailable power teams supposedly have in restricted free agency.

NBA Essentials ranks our six favorite stories of the day.

1. Hipster Runoff, via T.K. When I think of hipsters, I most definitely think of the Spurs.

2. Blazer's Edge. Will Greg Oden win Rookie of the Year?

3. The Sporting Blog. Josh Smith: "You're nothing without a good point guard." Take that, Tyronn Lue!

4. Wages of Wins Journal. Minnesota could win 30 games without Kevin Garnett for the first time ever. Progress!

5. Ball Don't Lie. Actual North Dakotan press headline: "Wade Keeps Dwyaneing His Shots." Next up: "Michael Keeps Redding His Otis" and "Mike Keep Krzyzewskiing His Rotation."

6. Cuzoogle. The un-PC Spanish Basketball Federation sets its targets on Germany.

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.

Just like that, the $58 million offer sheet Memphis thrust at Josh Smith has been signed, says Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Hawks will have until late next Friday (August 15) to decide whether J-Smoove is worth $11.6 million a year, which is the max starting salary Memphis could offer.

It's a no-brainer for the Hawks. In this market, Smith should be looking at $65 million over five years, or thereabouts. If Atlanta's $45 million offer last summer (reportedly re-offered this year) is really the highest the Hawks will go, Memphis just pulled a potential All-Star at a discount.

After the embarrassment of the Josh Childress loss, there should be no question Atlanta needs to make a statement by matching quickly. Hemming and hawing in Atlanta breeds disaster, as we saw with the convoluted Joe Johnson acquisition. I'm not sure even Steve Belkin would fight this deal -- it makes too much sense to match, while J.J. was a question mark -- but internal struggles taking up the entire week couldn't possibly surprise anyone.

If Atlanta matches, they are still worse off because of the loss of Childress ... but could challenge for the 7th or 8th seed due to youth development and a full season with an actual starting point guard. If the Hawks don't match, they'll be among the worst teams in the East. Easy, easy choice.

The first thing that struck me when news of the Grizzly offer sheet extended to restricted free agent Josh Smith was elation -- Smith has long made infinite sense for Memphis, the only team sitting on current year cap space. The second thought, upon looks at the details (five years, $58 million according to reports): is that enough?

It needs to reach two levels of acceptability: the offer must be big enough to get Smith to sign, and it needs to be so high Atlanta won't match. The first hurdle isn't one we typically run into in the NBA offseason. You rarely hear of "negotiations" between an RFA and an outside suitor. The other, though, is a big deal. Great debate on the Lakers' intentions followed Ronny Turiaf's signed offer with the Warriors. The Jazz waited nearly the full seven days allowed for matching to make a decision on C.J. Miles. Of course, this second level ties into the first: Smith doesn't want to return to Atlanta allegedly, so he needs to make sure whatever offer he signs exceeds the Hawk budget (and then some, to be safe).

Does this offer meet the requirement? No, not in a normal world with a normal prospect and a normal franchise. Twenty-nine teams, with the rights to Smith in hand, would match the $58 million offer. It averages out to less than $12 million a year for one of the most versatile power forwards in the game, who happens to be only 22 years old. It's as close to a no-brainer as I can imagine, until Ben Gordon signs a five-year, $15 million offer sheet from the Knicks.

Of course, we aren't dealing with a rational team. There's a shot Smith could sign this offer and sneak away from the Hawks. That's amazing itself ... but not the assurance Smith should require before he moves forward. If this is the starting point for sign-and-trade negotiations, or an opening salvo for further Smith-Memphis talks, good. If this is a real deal offer Smith plans on signing, Atlanta could surprise us by making a sensible decision.

Well, now. And we thought things were going to quiet down here in the NBA stateside with the Olympics. I guess we thought wrong.

The Commercial Appeal is reporting that the Memphis Grizzlies have extended a $58 million offer to Atlanta Hawks stat-stuffing forward Josh Smith. The length of the contract is not available at this time, but when we have it, you'll have it. The consensus is that it's a 5 year deal for $11.6 a year, average. Some think it's a bit low.

The Hawks have seven days to match the offer.

This puts quite an interesting cap on the end of an already wild free agency. There's been a lot of speculation about Smith this offseason, from Philadelphia's courting of him before signing Elton Brand, to reports that he's unwilling to return to the Hawks as long as Mike Woodson is head coach, to why no one had even taken a shot at him in restricted free agency. We're about to find out just how committed Josh Smith is to Atlanta, and how committed Atlanta is to Josh Smith.

The conceptual lineup of Mike Conley Jr., O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, Josh Smith, and either Marc Gasol or Darko Milicic is enough to send fans of athletic squads into epilepsy. It might not be a playoff squad, but it's entertaining as all get out. With Javaris Crittenton, Kyle Lowry, Hakim Warrick, and Darrell Arthur, if Memphis pulls this off, they're going to have done exactly what they needed to with their rebuilding project.

This offseason, NBA FanHouse will address important questions about the league. It will be a Summer of Answers. First up: the biggest draft busts of the decade.

Unless you're a fan of the Toronto Raptors or a huge NBA Draft nerd follower, you may have read that headline and thought, "who's Rafael Araujo? Never heard of him." That was my initial thought anyway, and that, my friends, is exactly why Mr. Araujo comes in at number four on our Biggest Busts of the '00s list.

When you look back at the 2004 draft, everyone taken in the first seven picks before Araujo turned out to be productive NBA (or Euroleague) players. Well, except for Shaun Livingston who had the gruesome knee injury two seasons ago. But that's no biggie, right? The talent level could have simply dropped off after that point, and Araujo could have been the first on a long list of disappointments who just happened to be drafted eighth overall. Unfortunately for him (and the Raptors), this was a very deep draft.

Players selected after Rafael (pronounced "HA-f-eye-ell" if you believe NBA.com) include Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Kevin Martin, Sasha Vujacic, Beno Udrih, Anderson Varejao, Pape Sow ... just seeing if you were still paying attention. The point is this: when a player is selected with the number eight pick, with this much talent still on the board, and his career averages over three seasons are under three points and three rebounds a game, I don't know if "bust" is a strong enough word to describe his NBA status.

When Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that one of the blockbuster sign-and-trade offers on the table was from an "Eastern Conference big dog," a lot of Pistons fans began to wonder if Joe Dumars was finally ready to make his long-awaited move to break up the core.

At the moment, that does not appear to be the case, as both A. Sherrod Blakely of Booth Newspapers and Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press report today that the Pistons and Hawks have not spoken in several weeks. Blakely speculates that a deal could still happen if the Pistons were willing to part with Tayshaun Prince, but even if the Pistons agreed, a deal might not be so easy.

What exactly is the problem? For one, most armchair GMs are forgetting the fact that Atlanta won't be able to get dollar-for-dollar back in any sign-and-trade deal for Smith. Since it's all but certain that Smith's next contract will include at least a 20% raise, he'll be a Base Year Compensation player, meaning the Hawks will only be able to accept 50% of the first-year value of his contract back. In other words, if he signs a contract worth $12 million a year, it'll only count as $6 million in a trade. (Dave Dial of MLive's Full-Court Press explains the nitty gritty details.)

According to Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Hawks have a few serious options if trading restricted free agent Josh Smith is something the team's willing to do. Reportedly, a Western "power" and an Eastern "big dog" have sign-and-trade proposals on the table. No further clues, though Hoopsworld has some suggestions of variable intrigue.

As mentioned in Saturday's Ben Gordon discussion, sign-and-trades don't pull as much return as the typical trade. (Marcus Camby trades need not apply.) But with a talent like Smith, the Hawks must get something decent, whether it be picks or a prospect or a decent frontcourt scorer to fill in some gaps and sell some tickets. If the Hawks lose Smith for little after losing Josh Childress for nothing, those 37 wins in 2007-08 will look like a heretical dream, not a repeat chance.

I remained astounded Memphis has not gotten involved here. The only team with cap space, the Grizzlies could renounce Kwame Brown and offer Smith whatever he wanted -- and surely more than what Atlanta would be willing to match. (Something like $53 million for five years probably would not get matched by the Hawks.) Smith's fair value at that price, and the Grizz desperately need frontcourt help. With both Smith and Emeka Okafor still flailing in the wind, that Memphis remains disengaged with this summer's market is almost a detriment to the league as a whole.

With the Clippers' acquisition of Marcus Camby, and the Sixers' signing of Elton Brand, the market has dried up very quickly for the services of Josh Smith. There aren't really any teams left that can pay Smith what he wants (except for Memphis, who doesn't seem interested in competing anymore), and with the Hawks being able to match any offer, it appears likely that Smith will return to the team next season. But for how long?

SI's Chris Mannix reports that the relationship between Smith and Hawks' coach Mike Woodson is in bad shape, meaning that Smith may be hesitant to sign a long term deal with Atlanta.

... league sources said Smith would not be interested in returning to the Hawks if the team retained coach Mike Woodson, who recently signed a two-year extension. The two have butted heads frequently in Smith's four seasons, and sources said the relationship is beyond repair. With a dearth of offers, Smith may change his tune, but having a volatile relationship on such a young team may not be in the Hawks' best interests.

A more appealing, but less plausible scenario could be for Smith to sign the one-year qualifying offer with Atlanta and try his luck in free agency next season.

Since there aren't any teams that can afford to sign Smith to an offer sheet and force the Hawks to match, the proverbial ball is in Josh's court. Does he go for the money and long term deal, and try to force his coach out Magic Johnson-style? Or does he sign the qualifying offer, play with a chip on his shoulder next season, and go into the unrestricted free agent market in 2009? The latter option seems like the better one to me, but players tend to want to lock up the guaranteed dollars as soon as humanly possible.