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Bye Bye Belkin

Authored by Patrick J. Austin - August 20, 2005 - 1:28 pm

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The Hawks embarrassing ownership conflict has finally come to an end. David Stern ruled that Steve Belkin did not have the authority to overrule a majority decision (i.e. the trade for Joe Johnson) by the Hawks ownership group and therefore granted his removal as an NBA governor. Recently, Belkin agreed to a buyout of his shares with the other owners and is will no longer be affiliated with the franchise.

Many Hawks fans are overjoyed to see Belkin go. If the reports are true, he really had no personal interest in the team. His only concern was financially. Our GM, Billy Knight, even said Belkin wanted to run the team on a bare minimum budget suggesting a payroll of only 32 million dollars. Knight informed him that the league mandated minimum payroll is 37 million, so Belkin replied "as low as you can go".

Having an owner with that mindset would have truly hurt the franchise. You can’t build a successful team if you aren’t willing to pay for talent. People have called us the Clippers East, and if Belkin had stayed on board, that nickname would’ve had some validity. He’d be the new Donald Sterling.

It’s wonderful to see this whole situation resolved and now the team can move on. Michael Gearon Jr. will take over as NBA governor. He was a fantastic choice considering he’s an Atlanta native and actually cares about the Hawks.

In a surprising move, Bruce Levenson, one the teams owners recently posted on the RealGM Hawks message board. To everyone’s amazement, he actually read our opinions on the whole JJ situation and the future of the franchise. He offered everyone lower-level seats to a Hawks-Clippers game for a substantially reduced price. In addition, he’ll choose two people to sit with him during the game. I have to say this is an incredible gesture by Mr. Levenson. To know that an owner actually cares about the opinion of the fans and makes an offer like that gives hope to everyone who truly cares about the Atlanta Hawks. If you’d like to read Mr. Levenson’s entire statement, the link is below.

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=409419