Among the items in Sam Amico's leaguewide roundup for Fox Sports Ohio today, he passes along that "word is" the Hawks will make re-signing Josh Smith and Kyle Korver their top priorities in the summer. If they prove to be out of Atlanta's price range, the team is likely to try to sign-and-trade one or both of those players.
Smith made headlines earlier this season when he said he felt he was deserving of a maximum-salary contract, but more recently clarified that his statements were in response to a question and not meant as a pronouncement ahead of this summer's negotiations. Nonetheless, it seems likely he'll go after a max deal, which would be worth nearly $100MM from the Hawks and a little more than $74MM if he signed with another team. Since Amico's report indicates there's a limit on how much they'll spend to retain Smith, it doesn't look like they're willing to give him the full max. They might be open to structing the deal so that Smith gets more than the $74MM he could get from another club, however, retaining their financial advantage over the rest of the league, but that's just my speculation.
Korver isn't nearly the player Smith is, but he leads the league with a 45.9% three-point percentage, and figures to have no shortage of suitors this summer. The Nuggets are already reportedly targeting Korver, who's expressed a willingness to consider a return to the Jazz and Bulls, two of his former teams. When Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors examined Korver's free agent stock earlier this month, he wrote that an offer somewhere in the neighborhood of the full mid-level exception, which includes a first-year salary of $5.15MM, might get a deal done.
The Hawks will have plenty of room under the cap to sign Smith, Korver and others this summer, when they'll have little more than $18.5MM in commitments. It appears GM Danny Ferry and company plan to be judicious with that room and aren't dead-set on re-signing any of their players if they're putting a limit on how high they'll go for the two men they count as their top priorities. That they would consider a sign-and-trade for both Smith and Korver could suggest that they don't want to rely completely on building next season's roster with free agents from other teams.