Joe Johnson staying in Atlanta

[Justine.]

http://www.nba.com/2010/news/07/04/johnson.hawks.ap/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2

ATLANTA (AP) -- All-Star guard Joe Johnson had agreed to a maximum contract to stay with the Atlanta Hawks, his agent said Sunday.

Arn Tellem confirmed an entry he wrote for the Huffington Post website, in which he said Johnson "announced his intention to re-sign with the Hawks for six more years.'' Tellem wrote that Johnson chose to remain in Atlanta over Chicago and New York, where he would have been reunited with Mike D'Antoni, his former coach in Phoenix. The Hawks could pay him nearly $120 million, while other teams could only give Johnson five years and pay him about $25 million less.
That made it easy to stick with the Hawks, who have reached the second round of the playoffs the past two years with Johnson as their top player. He's a four-time All-Star and has averaged more than 20 points in each of his five years with Hawks.

[NovU]

Initially, I was wondering why the Hawks would go all in on Joe Johnson, but then they're the Hawks.

[Rip32]

Current ownership doesn't care, the team will be sold by the time the back-end of that contract comes up and someone else will be stuck paying him to lead the team to get swept in the second round.

[Lamrock]

Living in Seattle, I know how bad of a GM Prick Sund is. This is a turrible deal for so many reasons. First and foremost is that they could have gotten a younger, better SG at a quarter of the price in Josh Childress. Instead, they opted to give an average starting SG a max contract, destroying their remote chances of getting past the second round for at least half a decade.

[Sauru]

they didnt need to offer him that much anyway. worst case they just offer what any other team could and not a dollar more if he dont take it go with a different (and better) free agent

[Justine.]

$120 million is just too much for him. Bad decision IMO.

[Andrew]

Current ownership doesn't care, the team will be sold by the time the back-end of that contract comes up and someone else will be stuck paying him to lead the team to get swept in the second round.

Exactly, they're counting on leaving someone else holding the bag.

I love the deal as a Bulls fan, so long as someone else - anyone else - is overpaying Joe Johnson, it eliminates the possibility that the Bulls can panic and overpay him should everyone else fall through. Facepalming move as far as the Hawks are concerned though.

[Axel The Great]

This is why I'm glad the Rockets aren't on the hunt for a big FA, or in that case having to resign mediocre players. I don't want to see my team overpaying mediocre players who can't even get to the line with so much ballhogging.

[Modifly]

6 years, $120 million is too much for Joe Johnson. It seems like the Hawks organization have all their hopes on Johnson but what I dont understand is why sign him to a 6 years deal when he's going to start sucking in three to four years time? Johnson is at best an above average player at what he does, not that he's a bad player, but this deal is a bit too good for someone of his caliber.

[J@3]

When the entire NLSC thinks this is a bad deal you know you've really fucked up.

[benji]

When you have a guy who can score 20 points a game because he touches the ball on almost every possession and do a variety of things but none of them exceptionally well, like a Jalen Rose or an Allan Houston, you have to give that guy a max contract.

What else would you guys have the Hawks do? Tell Johnson to beat it and go kill somebody else's offense while saving that $30 million in cap space in 2011 and 2012 for all the quality players they'll get to lowball with the new owner-friendly CBA?

That's crazy talk. You guys just can't see how vicious that Marvin Williams-Johnson-Bibby perimeter attack is going to be in the 2012 playoffs. $34 million for those three is going to look like a bargain!

[Andrew]

Well, when you put it like that...

[NovU]

I guess we know that Rudy Gay and Joe Johnson are a done deal now. Amare perhaps to the NYK, that's already 3 bigs FAs gone off the market. even before the Big 3 made a decision. I wonder how this will affect the FA market that's already looking not too deep outside of the Big 3. Boozer perhaps favors the Heat, but will Wade be content enough to re-sign if he's the only big FA who's to come. If Bosh was to be paired up with Wade, I have to assume Bosh'd favor the Bulls as their destination and I think that could play as a critical role in Wade's decision.

Assuming Ray Allen to also re-sign with the Celtics, this FA market isn't looking that much exciting in exception of the Big 3.

[Laxation]

When the entire NLSC thinks this is a bad deal you know you've really fucked up.

I really don't understand how so many message board people find this to be hideously retarded, yet an NBA gm can't see it... Its unfuckingbelievable how some people have a job.

[Andrew]

As Rip32 pointed out they're probably not going to be the ones shelling out the money to Johnson in a few years, so they don't care about the long term risk. They want to keep him now so they'll overpay to do it, knowing the contract will become someone else's problem in the near future. Still a stupid move for the team to make, of course, but they've at least worked out an escape route for themselves.

[Laxation]

"No, we will not be providing a written reference for your next job"
~ 2012 Atlanta Hawks

[Murat]

Poor Atlanta. Really poor Atlanta. Are they planning to make a deja-vu of before 2008?

[Rip32]

Poor Atlanta. Really poor Atlanta. Are they planning to make a deja-vu of before 2008?

No... they plan on making a deja-vu of the last 3 years, every year, for the next six years. Sauru said the same thing in the Free Agency thread, they don't have championship aspirations like a normal team does. All the Atlanta Hawks want is to get to the playoffs every year, make money from that, have an all-star player every year, make money from that, and fill their super-arena every game, and make money from that.

Their ownership now is terribad.

[benji]

They couldn't fill Phillips with a 53 win team, nor during the playoffs. Something like half the luxury boxes on that stupid wall sat empty all year.

[Sauru]

seriously. i was on my way to the world of coke and they offered me a luxury box for like 5.95 an hour. i told them to piss off

[benji]

Virtually every shred of evidence indicates that Johnson's next six years will be dramatically worse than the previous six. He's 28 years old and already has more than 25,000 minutes on his odometer. Trolling through my similarity database, I find that the 10 most comparable players are Michael Finley, Richard Hamilton, Jalen Rose, Vince Carter, Jamal Mashburn, Steve Smith, Glen Rice, Jerry Stackhouse, Allan Houston and Glenn Robinson.

None of them made an All-Star team after age 30. Johnson will be paid like an All-Star -- check that, a superstar -- until he's 33.

gg Atlanta.

[Murat]

Poor Atlanta. Really poor Atlanta. Are they planning to make a deja-vu of before 2008?

No... they plan on making a deja-vu of the last 3 years, every year, for the next six years. Sauru said the same thing in the Free Agency thread, they don't have championship aspirations like a normal team does. All the Atlanta Hawks want is to get to the playoffs every year, make money from that, have an all-star player every year, make money from that, and fill their super-arena every game, and make money from that.

Their ownership now is terribad.

When I was playing NBA 2K7 at PS2, at Association some owners plan is "make money"... Is it emptying salary cap? And signing FA? BTW, ownership is really bad... Why did they signed Joe Johnson? Because they don't have any All-Star except Joe Johnson...

[Martti.]

Horford was. And Josh Smith got snubbed because of Horford.

[Kenny]

I agree with Lamrock; they should have kept Childress instead.

[benji]

Least convincing column ever: http://hawks.realgm.com/articles/604/20 ... _contract/