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Hawks, Thrashers free to sign players
Judge eases restrictions resulting from owners' legal battle
By TIM TUCKER
The Atlanta Journal-Cons ution
Published on: 07/12/06
A Maryland court this afternoon lifted the ban that it last week placed on the Hawks and Thrashers signing players to multi-year contracts.
The teams now are free to conduct their business under less stringent restrictions from the court.
In an order, Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court Judge Eric Johnson said that "upon consideration of the joint application of all parties to this action," he would amend the portion of last week's order that prohibited the teams from signing players, other than draft picks, to multi-year contracts while the ownership dispute works its way through the appeals court(s).
Under the new order, the teams are free to make transactions as long as they don't exceed the NBA and NHL salary caps and don't acquire a player with a contract duration of more than four years.
The order further stipulates that the Hawks can make any sign-and-trade deal as long as they don't acquire a player with a contract duration of more than four years. That apparently means the Hawks can sign a player to a contract of longer than four years for the purpose of dealing him away in a sign-and-trade deal.
The new order removes the cloud of uncertainty that had hung since last week over the Hawks' plans for a sign-and-trade deal involving their free agent forward Al Harrington. The Hawks now are free to do a Harrington sign-and-trade as long as they stay under the salary cap and don't take back a contract of longer than four years.
The conditions become part of the stay, pending appeal, of Johnson's earlier order that Steve Belkin has the right to buy out the teams' other owners at cost.
The new order says that any transactions that go beyond the new conditions – i.e., exceed the salary caps or result in the acquisition of contracts longer than four years – would require unanimous consent of the Atlanta Spirit board of managers. That basically means Belkin would have to agree with the other owners to make such transactions.
