They booed him the whole game except during the tribute. To me, that wasn't classy form them. You wanna blame hom for going to better place, instead staying with that horrible franchise? C'mon. Those few fans should be mad at their own management and owners for the lack of long term strategy and that stupid gm wilcox... Neverm8nd, just wanted to say that not only that gesture when Jaylen dunked, but in a whole. The guy is a warrior for head to toe. He's been like that since he came in to the league. Great poise, sportsmanship, pride and honor. Real likeable also, hope he gets one with the C's.
They are thinking long term...they traded away older players like Teague and Korver and they let Horford go. (Granted, signing Howard goes against that strategy.) It appears their emphasis is to build the team with younger players.
We already have CBer's who want to trade Horford. Imagine what the chorus will sound like in year four of his contract.
Well you are right, they signed DH and that doesn't goes along with what you said. Same is with Millsap. First they wanna trade him, now they don't. You don't mess with that. You don't do that to your franchise player, if you have long term strategy...
I'm not sure I agree with you entirely. Given the new salary structure GM's don't need to coddle players like they used to. Even if Atlanta didn't shop him around Milsap was likely to search for a better deal. Both parties are aware of this. If they didn't test the market and he left, everyone would say, "why didn't they look to deal him during the season?" It's a Catch-22 situation.
Given the current state of affairs there isn't a lot of team loyalty going around with these star players. Money or a chance to win a Championship seems to be their primary motivators.
My guess is Atlanta was hoping they could acquire a high draft pick (like Boston's Nets pick) and another solid player for Milsap. And, then found out the market wasn't there.
If Atlanta was hoping to acquire younger talent, then I would say they were looking out for their long term interests. Milsap will be 32 in February and making $20 million a year. I'm fairly sure that this summer he will be looking to sign a 4 year, $100 million deal. At the end of such a contract he would be 37. Is he worth it? He's a great player...not a dominant one.
