Sternfish to help oust ATL owner

[Reality]

Sternfish siging an affidavit to oust 30 percent owner for his refusal to grossly overpay JJ.

Another view would be since the 60% owners want to pay JJ that should be their right.  Right?

[Skandery]

Belkin owns 40% of the Hawks.  

I think the rest of the owners want him ousted because he's gone to great lengths to alienate everyone around him.  His beef isn't even paying Joe Johnson 70 mil.  Its giving up TWO first round picks and a trade exception.  I can see the guys point, but he needed to do a better communication job, not go crying to his Boston judge.  If he's ousted and the sign and trade goes through, that is ridiculous for Phoenix.  Those Colangelo's don't have the decency to even use KY, a team with Marion, Stoudemire, Nash, and Thomas as starters and two future first round picks from ATL.  Reee-freakin'-diculous!!  

[Reality]

Belkin owns 40% of the Hawks.  

I think the rest of the owners want him ousted because he's gone to great lengths to alienate everyone around him.  His beef isn't even paying Joe Johnson 70 mil.  Its giving up TWO first round picks and a trade exception.  I can see the guys point, but he needed to do a better communication job, not go crying to his Boston judge.  If he's ousted and the sign and trade goes through, that is ridiculous for Phoenix.  Those Colangelo's don't have the decency to even use KY, a team with Marion, Stoudemire, Nash, and Thomas as starters and two future first round picks from ATL.  Reee-freakin'-diculous!!

In this JJ case its the "Alienator" who has the common sense when compared to the 60% owners?

Under alinenated influence or not, 60s boys want to give the keys of the kingdom for JJ?  :wacko:  

[Joe Vancil]

You know, if you ask me, Belkin is right.  That's too much to offer for Joe Johnson.

I can't fault the guy for going to the judge;  the partners were apparently going to oust him, and his contract stipulates that that can't happen.  Filing an injunction is the only sensible thing to do.

Just how high do you think two Atlanta Hawks picks are going to be?  I'm with you, Skander - the Colangelos are making out like bandits.

 

[rickortreat]

This is insane.  JJ is not worth Atlanta mortageing it's future.  No one in their right mind would give Phoenix those extra picks.

Stern has no buisiness being involved with an internal decision.  Belkin could very well have grounds to sue Stern and the NBA.

If the guys who own the 60% want to buy out Belkin, that's one thing.  But they're being very stupid about this.

Maybe this is why Atlanta keeps failing to put out a winning team.  

[westkoast]

Stern has no buisiness being involved with an internal decision.  Belkin could very well have grounds to sue Stern and the NBA.
 

I really dont see why he would get involved at all.  He is not in charge of seeing how teams do their own business.  If hes going to get involved in this, why isnt he getting involved on every signing/trade?  Why not just make Stern the unofficial GM/front office guy for every single team?

I mean if anything he should have stepped in years ago and made Chicago pay MJ what he wanted :lol:

[Skandery]

The reason David Stern is stepping into this whole ordeal is because the judge in Boston (on behalf of Belkin ironically) ruled that David Stern would have to approve the vote by the other owners to oust Belkin.  So basically the other owners are following the judges ruling and asking Stern if their vote can go through with Stern responding with a resounding "YES".  

Belkin doesn't own the majority (only 40%) BUT owns by far the largest single portion.  The Atlanta Hawks are owned by Spirit of Atlanta, LLC group comprised of all of said owners, with Belkin owning 40% by himself.  I'm wondering how horrible of a job he did in pissing everybody else off to lose the vote in the firstplace, if they voted by ownership.  Now I agree that he's right, but apparently he's still stupid enough to have EVERYBODY in the Hawks organization hate him.  

[Joe Vancil]

Skander,

     Everything that I'm reading says Belkin only has a 30% ownership stake.  Where are you getting the 40% number from?

     And it's not a "horrible job he did in pissing everybody else off to lose the vote in the first place."  It's 3 owners - two want the trade, and the one that is the NBA governor DOESN'T want it.  Now the other two want him out...can't say that I blame them.

     I think the basketball people in the Hawks organization - GM, etc. - were looking for a rubber stamp on the trade.  Belkin said no.  That doesn't sound "stupid" to me.  Stupid would be the other owner comparing the acquisition of Joe Johnson to Boston's acquisition of Larry Bird.  Note to the guy:  Boston *KEPT* Larry Bird...they TRADED Joe Johnson.  You'd best hope that acquiring Joe Johnson isn't anything like New Orleans acquiring Gail Goodrich (the draft pick the Lakers got was Magic Johnson) or Utah acquring Adrian Dantley (that draft pick for the Lakers was James Worthy).  It'd be a real shame to end up sending Oden to Phoenix, wouldn't it?

 

[Skandery]

I made a mistake, he does own only 30%.

But my source,

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=hawk...ov=st&type=lgns

does say that there are 9 men in the Atlanta Spirit LLC, not three.  Also, that 30% is the largest single ownership in that group.  It also states that he has "alienated" fellow owners and GM Billy Knight.  To me that sounds like he used his veto power as governor swiftly without any real effort to make them understand the folly of sacrificing the entire future.  Like I've said, I fully agree with his reservations about this whole transaction.  But it seems to me "stupid" is the only way to describe someone who is the the largest single holder AND team governor turning himself into the enemy.  You see I don't think his argument would've taken that much effort on his part, but maybe I'm underestimating just how "stupid" the rest of Hawks management is.        

[Joe Vancil]

You know what?  This structure is the most insane ownership structure I've ever heard of.

Listen to how this works:

There are 9 owners, but three ownership groups:  a Washington group owning 40%, an Atlanta one owning 30%, and a Boston one - Belkin - owning 30%.  

The partnership agreement says that each group - the Washington group, the Atlanta group, and the Boston group - each gets one vote in determining course of action.  Therefore, it's not by ownership stake directly.  If 49% of the Washington group and 49% of the Atlanta group oppose the trade, in addition to Belkin's 30%, that constitutes 64.3 % of the stock against the trade - but the trade is supposed to go through!

Add in the next wrinkle.  Belkin has veto power.  If he says no, it doesn't happen.  Whether that exists only because he's the NBA governor or not is up for debate.

And finally, he's the NBA governor for 5 years, and by contract, cannot be removed from that position except by reacting against the wishes of ownership.

If his veto power stems from his role as governor, then he could be construed as acting against the wishes of the organization, even if 64.3% of the stock agrees with him.  But the 35.7% of the remaining stock could oust him.

Now - if his veto power stems from the fact that he's the highest ownership stock - which isn't uncommon in partnership agreements - then his veto is part of the partnership process, and would therefore be governed by the legal agreement of the partnership.  In essence, he would NOT be acting outside of his authority, meaning that 30% ownership could out-vote 70%.  And, like I said, that's not uncommon in partnerships.

All of this mess...just to keep a team in Atlanta.  Well, Skander and I have BEEN to a game in Atlanta.  Trust me...it's not worth this kind of mess to keep a team there!  There'll end up being more lawyers involved in this mess than there were people at the game!  Well...that's not entirely true...Raf, Skander, and I were there.  Oh.  And the team employees, ushers, scorekeepers...those kind of folks.  But if you don't count us....


 

[Skandery]

I found a much better article, here goes:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/stor...marc&id=2130377

What a mess of an ownership structure, I say if the Hawks want to mortgage their future for an unproven swingman, fine!

With any luck it will only hasten the collapse of the entire organization, where it can then be moved back to St. Louis where it won an NBA championship like in 1956. :up: