Childress----Gone

Well. Okay then.

It what has to be the most celebrated negotiating tactic ever, Josh Childress has told the Hawks to stick it and has taken the Greek offer to leave the NBA behind.

It's jaw-dropping to imagine that this has occured--but to the scarred faithful that are the Hawks fans, it's another punch in the stomach to a fan base that had just started to feel better about itself.

Now, regardless of what you think about the basketball impact of this move, there is a somber mood among the masses---with anger surely to follow.

My heart goes out to the dutiful Hawks staffers that have to try and peddle tickets and make their number---events that unfold like this surely does not drive people to open the wallet.

As we discussed in the last entry, this has an impact beyond the court and beyond the fans ire. What message does this send to the rest of the roster, and to free agents in general, that one of their favorite players, a player whose image was everything you could want and whose skills were widely recognized, has chosen to leave the league rather than accept your contract offers?

More details will surely come out about what Childress can do next year, and the year after, etc. And the Hawks will surely have rights to him, blah, blah, blah.

But, in a Athens minute, the legs have been cut out from the momentum that had been building over the last few seasons. The team has let this happen and must now face the consequences to come, and there will surely be many.

The team has to focus on getting Josh Smith signed to begin to stem the emotional damages on the franchise and to build back a reputation for taking care of their players. It must be a message to the other players that this was isolated and the team does care about keeping this growing core together.

We wrote a year ago that the team was likely unwilling to go far beyond the MLE to keep Childress and that he would be the next good Ex-Hawk. That was with a different GM and before the playoff run, but I suppose the sentiment hadn't changed where it mattered--in the pocketbook.

We just couldn't have dreamed it would be to Greece. αντίο!