Al Harrington Fires Agent, Turns to Arn Tellem

Hmm wow realgm says that this means he might not go back to Indiana. Sucks for Indy if he doesn't go back since they really need him now more than ever without Artest and Reggie Miller.

 

I think (and hope) he goes back to Indiana. It's a natural fit in a lot of ways. Plus, how else is he going to get a big contract? The Pacers have the big trade exception from the Hornets and it practically has Harrington's name on it. But maybe the Warriors could give the Hawks a player they want in a SnT deal.

 

Apparently, he's hiring Tellem to try and get a deal bigger than the 57 mil offer he got from IND. GS offered hm 66 mil in a S&T involving Murphy to ATL. There are a few other teams interested, too.

Personally, I think even 57 mil for him is crazy money. Not the most efficient player-- his TS% is a dimsal rather .506 for his career. Even Juwan Howard got .515 points higher than that. His +/- type stats also look rather bad whether he was in IND or ATL.

So what he could put up 17 and 7 for a losing team? Juwan can do that, too, when Yao was out and Juwan's bad contract isn't even half the size of what Harrington's will be.

In other words, I doubt he's a Morey type player.

Which brings up the interesting part of this for the Rockets... apparently, IND, GS, and a few other teams don't think the same way Morey does... there has got to be a good secondary deal to be had with this Harrington movement somewhere.

 

I keep hearing this. How do we really know how Morey thinks?

 

We don't really know how he thinks exactly.

However, one can get some ideas from reading interviews with him (I remember at least one on the Chronicle) and articles written by him. For example, I read an article penned by Morey himself when he was in Boston that analyzed the free agent acquisition of Brian Scalabrine. The article looked at Scalabrine's player pair numbers and generally concluded that Scalabrine was a decent role player who fit well with the Nets. So, that's at least one glimpse into how Morey thinks.

 

Let him stay with the Hawks, they need him.

 

show me the money!

 

I wouldn't mind having him as our starting 4 over Juwan, but I doubt the Hawks, bad as they are, would take Juwan + Luther + Whatever Else...

 

My take:

This deal had stalled, yet Al wants to be a Pacer. He is switching to Arm Tellum, who is Jermaine O'Neal's agent, and who is a very aggressive agent.

After 15 days, when the new agent deal is sealed, Tellem can put pressure on the Hawks to get it done, with the implied threat that they could have issues with all of the many Arn Tellum clients in the future unless they make Al (and JO) happy by doing the deal with Indiana.

at least I'm hoping, as a pacers fan....

 

Golden State could re-enter as a threat. If they trade Troy Murphy for Harrington, and they were right there with the sweepstakes (Harrington was working out with Baron Davis, I believe, and talking up going to San Fran), they could arrange for a bigger money deal than Indiana (TE --> 7.6 mill max starting salary).

However, the Hawks were holding firm that they didn't want to take on salary in the deal. Their ownership mess is making things a nightmare and severely limiting their options.

Unless Harrington is bringing in Arn to speed things up and seal the original deal, this could get bad quick. It wouldn't stun me if Atlanta just renounced his rights let him walk for nothing.

Evan

 

Murphy is contracted for 5 yrs. From what I've read Atlanta can only take on players with contracts up to 4 yrs.

 

No one knows, but himself. So all these based judgements are just projective.

 

I hope he is trying to pursue an even larger deal from a different team. I'm not a fan of George Shinn and him giving the Pacers a $7.5 million trade exception for nothing is too sketchy for my liking. It serves the Pacers right to lose out on Harrington. They've been acting like it was done-deal all offseason. The Hawks don't do much right (I should know, I live 2 hours away from Phillips Arena and have actually been to a game *yikes!*) but demanding the Pacers cough up the maximum ammount of cash the NBA allows to be traded ($3 million) and a future first is exactly the kind of hardball their front office needs to be playing. No more allowing the rest of the league to take handouts of their roster.

 

When did Al Harrington turn into a good player? He seems to be the kind of a guy that you keep hoping will have a breakout season this year, every year. But, he never really has. I don't understand why a team would want to give up $50-$60 million for him, much less all that and Troy Murphy.

 

Bingo! This guy has shown he can't be a consistent starting-quality player on the worst team in the league.

 

From the Pacers perspective, he is certainly a good addition when you use nothing but a traded player exception, a protected draft pick, and cash to get him.

Usually the traded player exceptions don't get you much. This potential deal is an anomaly because Atlanta's ownership is in such disarry that they don't want to take back any salary. Typically, teams try to trade talent for talent.

The other suitors for the Pacers traded player exception might be Philly with Korver or Hunter, Lakers & Mihm, Spurs & Oberto, etc. Not anyone near Al in in age (26), or potential. Not saying he's a star, but he'd be a good #3 option on a decent team and the O'Neal-Harrington-Granger frontline would be pretty decent if the tempo is increased and they take advantage of their athleticism.

Chad Ford (today at ESPN) seems to think the agent swap just will force Billy Knight to pull the trigger on the Pacer offer.

 

Ford's blog today at ESPN:

"The Pacers made a couple of solid trades highlighted by the acquisition of Marquis Daniels, but they won't be dramatically better unless they figure out a way to convince Hawks ownership to defrost GM Billy Knight from his cryogenic freezing chamber (he bought it from Elgin Baylor on eBay) so he'll agree to sign-and-trade Al Harrington.

Harrington fired long-time agent Andy Miller earlier this week and is reportedly replacing him with Arn Tellem. Tellem seems to hold unusual sway over the Hawks. He convinced them to give away two first-round picks and Boris Diaw for his client, Joe Johnson, last summer and he talked the Hawks into drafting another of his clients, Shelden Williams, very high in the draft.

Right now, the hold up seems to be $3 million. Chump change by NBA standards. The Hawks want the Pacers to pay it as part of the deal. The Pacers feel like they're already giving up enough (they're offering their 2007 first-round pick and are willing to take back John Edwards' salary from Atlanta). Both teams have their side of the story but it's hard to believe that Atlanta isn't going to relent.

The Pacers and the Bobcats are the only teams capable of swallowing Harrington's salary without sending back a player. The Bobcats aren't interested in Harrington so … what's the hold up? While the Hawks drag their feet, they've been completely immobilized in the free agent market again." - Chad Ford

 

Looks like the Bobcats are the only team that really knows what they're doing in this whole deal.

 

Would Al be an upgrade over Juwan Howard? Seriously.

And assume that you gave up nothing but cash and a lottery-protected pick to get him.