Atlanta Hawks: Post-Draft To Do List

4. Clear a little cap room

The Hawks have $40 million in salary committed to next season. Due to the salary cap rules, however, Atlanta has only about $3 million in cap room. With several free agents that the Hawks have Bird rights for, the cap hold for those free agents leaves Atlanta with little operating room.

The Hawks do have an out that they can and should use to open up more room.  By renouncing the rights to their unneeded free agents, the Hawks can clear the cap holds that limit their space. Elton Brand, Gustavo Ayon, John Jenkins and Per Antic are all free agents that are no integral to Atlanta’s success.

Antic won’t be an issue for Atlanta, because he is returning to his native Europe.

With these free agent rights renounced, Atlanta would have closer to $7 million in space, and waiving the non-guaranteed contracts if Mike Muscala or Austin Daye could open up slightly more room. This is important because in order to fulfill the next items on this list, Atlanta will need more cap space.

Fortunately, the Hawks are not in a position where they have to make tough decisions. None of the players who they should renounce averaged more than 5.7 points per game for the Hawks last season. This minor move in the first step in the greater process of team improvement, which is covered on the following slide

Next: Fixing Their Biggest Weakness