Atlanta Hawks should pass on Joe Johnson deal
By Jeff Lenchiner, InsideHoops.com | Aug. 11, 2005
The Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns want to make a trade that, as covered on the InsideHoops.com NBA Daily and NBA Rumors pages, is being held up because Steve Belkin, a Hawks part-owner, is blocking it. The other team owners and their general manager want it to happen.
If the trade goes through, the Hawks send Boris Diaw and two conditional future first round draft picks to the Suns, who would sign Joe Johnson to a five-year, $70 million deal and send him to the Hawks.
If I ran the Hawks, I'd be against the deal.
Atlanta is starved for stars. Very few good players have wanted to join the team, which lacks fans, isn't good at winning, and has had little appeal for a while now. So, it's understandable that if a good player actually does want to be a Hawk, they'd want to grab him. And Joe Johnson has expressed his desire to be on the team. That happens about as often as I dunk from the free throw line. In other words, not more than once a month, at the most.
Johnson is very talented on both ends of the floor. He's good at just about everything. But the Hawks are in the process of gathering cheap young talent. And even if the approach hasn't paid off yet, they should keep right on doing that. Spending $70 million on a player -- almost any player short of a top superstar -- isn't necessarily the right move.
Also, Johnson is a swingman who can play the point. But he's not a true point. The team already has a bunch of young swingmen on it. They need a real point guard. I think I'm the current starter if the season began today.
So, if the deal goes through, they're adding a player who doesn't fill the team's top needs -- point guard and center.
But what kills the deal for me is that they're not just spending $70 million on Johnson. They're giving away two first round draft picks for the right to spend $70 million on him.
I don't care that salary cap room hasn't helped the Hawks lately. It's still valuable. It could still help later.
Atlanta should keep their first rounders and cap room and keep adding young talent around Al Harrington, Marvin Williams, Josh Smith and Josh Childress.
Jeff Lenchiner is the editor of InsideHoops.com.
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