Atlanta Hawks General Manager Danny Ferry thinks Josh Smith will stay put – NBA Update
After taking over the reins of the Atlanta Hawks as their new general manager, Danny Ferry has been making some big time changes to the roster. He traded Joe Johnson over to the Brooklyn Nets and shipped out Marvin Williams to
Utah Jazz. As a result of these two trades and draft night, Ferry has seen nine new players come in to the organization.
In his short time in charge, Ferry has been able to bring financial stability to the organization with much of the expenses being taken care of by letting go the hefty contract Johnson had.
There have been rumours that Ferry wants to use this new found wealth to bring in Dwight Howard via trade but that move is nowhere near to being done any time soon with other concerns looming.
At the moment, Ferry has to focus his attention towards more pressing matter in form of Josh Smith. There had been speculation last season that Smith notified the Hawks management to trade him, however much has changed since then.
Ferry has come over to take on the reins with a new dynamic approach and he believes that Smith has a future in Atlanta.
“He’s a really good player,” Ferry said. “I love his ability to pass the ball. I love his ability to make game-changing plays defensively. I love his competitiveness. If I was out there playing, I would want Josh on my team.”
There has been no confirmation of any new long term deals being agreed to. However Ferry acknowledged the fact that he has been in touch with Smith in order to discuss his future. He believes Smith to be a key part of the Hawks
future as they look forward to next season.
“He’s excited for next season,” he said. “We haven’t really gone in that direction with him [on roster plans]. But we’ve talked about how we’re going to play. We’ve talked about other players. His ideas, my ideas. I’m just trying
to establish a relationship.”
At the moment, Smith has one year left on his contract and even though he has not been adamant on leaving Atlanta lately, there have been no guaranteed reports of a long term deal made. Atlanta would certainly want to make that
deal at the earliest.
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