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We are almost at the end of NBA Free Agency frenzy. We've updated all the NBA Free Agency signings on our board and put the top five as yet unsigned free agents in glorious 14-pt font.
But what about the Atlanta Hawks? After the Elton Brand signing, most figured the Hawks were done.
But are they?
Interesting is that, while they have a verbal agreement with DeMarre Carroll, they have not yet signed him officially. It could be that the Hawks, who agreed to a two year, 5 million dollar deal with Carroll, may intend to use the remainder of their cap on other free agents, then signing Carroll to the agreed upon contract under the NBA Room Exception of the CBA.
That exception begins at ~2.5M dollars, just about the terms of their verbal agreement with Carroll.
But don't the Hawks have a lot of players already?
Let's take a look at the Hawks' current guaranteed deals: (ShamSports.com)
Al Horford 12M
Paul Millsap 9.5M
Jeff Teague: 8M
Kyle Korver: 6.76M
Lou Williams: 5.225M
Elton Brand: 4M
Dennis Schröder: 1.348M
John Jenkins: 1.258M
Jared Cunningham: 1.208M
That's nine players under guaranteed contracts -- and the Hawks have three non-guaranteed contracts still on the books.
DeShawn Stevenson: 2.24M
Shelvin Mack: 884K
Mike Scott: 788K
That's 12 players so far at a total of 53.3M dollars. The cap is 58.6M and the floor is 52.74M.
The Hawks also, per a league source, have the following players under cap hold:
Lucas Nogueira: 1.419M
Ivan Johnson: 1.251M
Anthony Tolliver: 884K
That brings the total cap number to 56.868M including the cap holds.
Mike Muscala is an unsigned, second round pick and therefore, despite the Hawks having his rights, does not carry a cap hold.
The Hawks could release Stevenson and send Nogueira and Muscala overseas and regain ~3.66M in cap space, bringing their cap room to 5.4M. They also could renounce Ivan and Tolliver and grab another 2.135M, making a total of about 7.535M in cap room IF they felt they had to do all that to get a certain player.
Also, as long as the Hawks keep that cap hold for Ivan Johnson, they can go over the cap to re-sign him, if needed, though it's not likely that Ivan will make more than the 1.2M cap hold the Hawks have for him next season.
So the Hawks have options and will likely keep those options open until it doesn't make sense to do so anymore. Once we see the official signing of Carroll, we'll know that any sort-of major signings are complete.