A lot of you have been asking, “Hey, why don’t you ever talk about lawyering?”, so what follows is part of our special summer legal series, wherein we’ll be teaching you about the law.
Case #19-BB-4 deals with the Atlanta Hawks ownership situation, which has been a mess for well over a year.
On one side you have Steve Belkin, who last summer was ousted as an owner by the other seven owners. Later on, another judge ruled that he should be the sole owner, and the other dudes were out.
They’re currently appealing that process, and that’s where yesterday’s hearing came in.
Montgomery County (Md.) Circuit Court Judge Eric Johnson ruled that during the appeal process the defendants — the owners other than Belkin — are to “not initiate the purchase, sale, trade or negotiation of any NBA or NHL player contract … excluding contracts involving present or future draft picks and contracts for any other player with a contract duration of one year or less.”
Johnson said the restriction would not apply to players with whom negotiations already have begun, meaning, for example, the Hawks are free to complete their planned signing of free agent point guard Speedy Claxton to a multi-year contract.
Also in court were Hawks general manager Billy Knight, Hawks coach Mike Woodson, Hawks vice president Dominique Wilkins, Hawks-Thrashers chief financial officer Bill Duffy and chief legal officer Scott Wilkinson.
We’re big Dominique Wilkins fans, but the real treat would be seeing Bill Duffy in court. We heard he has the new Texas Instruments XX7RD-444444-X. Awesome for charting equations.
That aside, what a sad day for both of those Atlanta Hawks fans. Basically, the team isn’t allowed to sign any free agents for more than a year. We see the logic – they don’t want the scorned owners to give like 6 years, $40M to Kevin Willis just to screw over Belkin. The thing is, this appeal could take forever, because that’s how long lawyers take to do anything.
And Speedy Claxton – what’s he thinking this morning, other than “I wish my nickname wasn’t Speedy Claxton…there are so many much cooler names, like Quickie Raxon or Fasty Baxter.”
No mention of this on the Hawks website. Weird!
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Slow day huh? Perhaps wondering when Lebron will spurn the Cavs?
LeBron has 100 million reasons to play in NY, Chicago, or Detroit.
Detroit is like Cleveland but ghettoer.
Boney are you doing your research via Bill Simmons again?
I think it’s nice LeBron is getting all this free pub simply by not talking.
Bill has a point, the “Will LB Re-sign With the Cavs?” angle would make the 2006-07 season, and this blog, much more interesting.
Look at it this way – last week he showed at the Brown/Gibson pc and playfully joked about the Cavs having enough time to take care of him.
Either he’s signing and using this period to get free publicity, or that and all the other statements that he’s staying were just a cruel tease. What makes more sense to you?
My guess is July 12 he’s laughing about what freaks the press has acted like the last two weeks.
Cav,
You can joke all you want, but I know you whispered “F U Sports Guy” under your breath when you read it too.
Nah I expect that from him.
Doctor Who takes three prizes at the National Television Awards in a repeat of its success last year…
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