Report: Hawks have plans to clear cap space if Horford opts to return

With a flurry of activity on the first day of NBA free agency, the Atlanta Hawks appeared to move forward under the assumption that longtime center Al Horford will not be back with the club next season.

Horford is an unrestricted free agent, and the Hawks, by virtue of owning his Bird rights, had the opportunity to offer him a fifth year and $30 million-plus in additional salary on a potential max deal. But they were reportedly reluctant to tack on that fifth year, and reportedly never offered him the full max. Meanwhile, their free-agent signings of center Dwight Howard and swingman Kent Bazemore effectively wiped out the balance of their cap space.

On top of signing an ostensible replacement in Howard, bringing back Bazemore - whose Bird rights they do not own - means the Hawks will have to renounce Horford to get his $18-million cap hold off their books, meaning they'll no longer have his Bird rights, meaning they can no longer go over the cap to re-sign him.

The Hawks, however, have a plan to get around that complication, in the event Horford decides to stick around on a sub-max deal. According to sources of both ESPN's Brian Windhorst and The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski, Atlanta has been exploring trade possibilities that would help them unload salary and clear enough space to re-sign Horford.

That's assuming that none of the five teams Horford reportedly met with Friday managed to sway him. Wojnarowski reports that contract negotiations between him and the Hawks are ongoing, but it doesn't appear the team has moved off its stance to come in somewhere below the max.

The other question has to do with roster fit. Horford could conceivably slide down to power forward and play alongside Howard, but that would leave incumbent power forward Paul Millsap in an awkward spot. Even with his mobility and quick feet for his size, playing Millsap the majority of his minutes at small forward is far from the optimal use of his talent.

Then again, Millsap is the only Hawk whose outgoing salary could open up the requisite space to re-sign Horford, so perhaps he's the odd man out in all this. He's owed $20 million in 2016-17, after which he can opt out of his deal and become an unrestricted free agent. He'll be 32, in a summer that will see the salary cap spike yet again. If the Hawks can't foresee paying what could be an astronomical asking price a year from now, it may behoove them to deal Millsap now, rather than watch him walk for nothing.

Which, for all their apparent scheming, may be what ends up happening with Horford.