Hawks Acquire Tiago Splitter

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

11:11am: The deal is official, the Hawks and Spurs announced via press release. The rights to Georgios Printezis and a protected 2017 second-rounder go to San Antonio, according to the statements.

“We’re excited to bring Tiago to Atlanta. He’s played an important role in a winning environment, has a great understanding of our system and will add to our core character,” Hawks coach/executive Mike Budenholzer said as part of the statement. “Tiago also brings championship experience and we look forward to adding his interior presence to our team.”

JULY 9TH, 10:36am: The trade is expected to become final today, with the Hawks sending the rights to a draft-and-stash player and a heavily protected future second-round pick, according to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (on Twitter).

JULY 1ST, 10:49am: The Spurs will trade Tiago Splitter to the Hawks, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter links). The move comes just after San Antonio agreed to re-sign Danny Green, so the Splitter move will presumably allow San Antonio to preserve the cap flexibility to compete for LaMarcus Aldridge and other marquee free agents, Wojnarowski adds. The deal can’t become official until July 9th, after the July Moratorium, and details of the swap are still in flux, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, who suggests other components would allow the Hawks to retain Paul Millsap if they can keep him away from the Magic. Atlanta is expected to absorb Splitter into cap space, as Windhorst writes in a full story.

The arrival of Splitter, who was set to make $8.5MM this coming season and $8.25MM in 2016/17, has a 15% trade kicker in his deal, so he’ll see a bonus of about $2.5MM, notes Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Still, with DeMarre Carroll off to Toronto, the Hawks can afford that and still make a max bid for Paul Millsap.

The Spurs had made Splitter available, but it seemed as though there was a scenario in which San Antonio could sign Aldridge, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili while still keeping Splitter, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com wrote. That probably didn’t involve the lucrative deal that San Antonio reached with Green, however.

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