The Hawks are officially back to square one in their search for a general manager to replace the outgoing Billy Knight. ESPN's Marc Stein reports that the team had offered the position to current Cavs front-office exec Chris Grant late last week, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Sekou Smith even went so far as to say "The only thing missing is the official announcement," but after thinking things over this weekend, Grant has apparently passed on the deal.Maybe this wouldn't be so embarrassing for the Hawks if Grant weren't the only candidate to pull his hat out of the ring: Stein reports Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey pulled his hat out of the ring before talks heated up with Grant.
Ordinarily a team would probably prefer to get their front office affairs settled before the NBA draft, but in that respect the Hawks are somewhat "blessed" -- they don't have a single pick, giving up their first-rounder to the Suns as part of the 2005 deal for Joe Johnson and their second-rounder to the Kings as part of this year's Mike Bibby trade.
That said, there is a lot of unfinished business this team needs to attend, namely contract extensions for restricted free agents Josh Smith and Josh Childress, addressing coach Mike Woodson's job security and dealing with the redundancy in the front court. I don't know if the Hawks' ownership group is doing something to scare off would-be candidates, but this should be a semi-attractive job considered the Hawks' young core.
