Just got off the conference call with Rick Sund and the media, so I'll try to provide some insight into what happened. Sund didn't get into any of the details of the negotiations (he still has negotiations on-going with Josh Smith and others), but he definitely made it clear that he felt the Hawks made a competitive offer to Childress, more than any other NBA team was offering. While he didn't come right out and say Childress took the money and ran, the details of the contract (courtesy of Sekou Smith) show that the difference between what the Hawks offered and what Olympiakos gave him was substantial. Like twice as much substantial.

Look, I'm a Hawks employee, but I'm just as big a Hawks fan as anyone. I've followed the team since I was a little boy growing up in Mississippi, and I've been through the highs and lows over the past 20 years like everyone else. That Childress is gone, and we have no compensation in return (other than the cap space previously reserved for him), is a tough blow, no doubt.

And while there are many who want to blame Hawks management and ownership for what happened, I just don't know if that is really fair in this case.

The NBA is a business. The teams that are most successful (in the NBA and in all of sports) are the ones that spend their money wisely and don't let emotions get in the way of what makes the most business sense. How many times have we seen teams overpay for players and then end up with albatross salaries they regretted almost immediately thereafter?

Did Rick Sund want to keep Josh Childress? You bet. We all did. He was a huge part of the team's success last season and (in theory) a big part of its future. But does it make sense to give him 10 million a year (or something even remotely close to that)? It doesn't. I'd wager you'd be hard-pressed to find any NBA person who would claim otherwise.

Josh Childress is a wonderful player (I've been a champion of his importance to the team his entire career), but the Hawks would be making a huge mistake to pay him that kind of money, considering what they are paying (and will soon be paying) other players on the roster. He was an important part of the Hawks rotation, but he wasn't a star, and 10-mill a year is star territory, at least to teams that spend their money wisely.

As Sund said on the call, Atlanta made Childress a competitive offer, and it was more than any other team appeared willing to give. Childress' agents were charged with getting their client the best deal they could, and my hat is off to them for doing so in a creative way. They clearly weren't going to get this kind of money for Chills in the NBA, and decided this was a risk that was worth taking for him (and while we're here, this isn't even that risky a deal for Josh. He doesn't have a huge buyout that would make it difficult for him to leave and he has an option to terminate the contract after every season, making it very easy for him to return should he find Greece a bad fit).

I know most people want to blame Hawks management and ownership for letting this happen, and if that is your opinion you are entitled. But at least consider this:

Professional sports are, for the most part, very orthodox. Change is rare; teams and players follow the same paths over and over and over again. You see it all the time - baseball teams still sacrifice bunt and issue intentional walks despite increasing evidence that those plays are nowhere near as helpful as previously thought; NFL teams punt on 4th and short even though the opportunity to keep possession is well worth the risk; in the NBA, coaches continue to let teams shoot game-tying three-pointers with the clock winding down rather than fouling them and giving up a pair of free throws. Changes to those strategies are often (if not always) met with a heavy dose of skepticism from peers and colleagues.

That is why a move like this one is so hard to comprehend - an American player of Childress' caliber has simply never left the NBA at this stage in his career, not with reasonable money on the table. It's easy to throw blame at the Hawks, but what if there is more to it than that?

Not to go all Harvard, but today's global economy is much different than it used to be. The euro is much stronger than the dollar, making it very easy for European teams to make competitive (or in this case, far superior) financial offers to NBA players. The top European teams are making more and more money every year, giving them large enough budgets to handle contracts of this size without even blinking. This was going to happen eventually, it just took the right kind of player to take the bait, and frankly, I think Childress is that guy.

Chills is not like most NBA players (afro aside). Every time I've chatted with him at the start of seasons past he's raved about his trips abroad over the summer, including trips to China and Africa as part of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program. He realizes there is a much larger world out there, and he's experienced a good bit of it. Right off the bat, the idea of playing in a foreign land was going to be much more palatable to him than most.

Josh is also a guy who, though dedicated to his craft, maybe doesn't see basketball as the end-all be-all of his existence. He has continued to work towards a business degree over the past few summers and spoke often of wanting to be as successful off the court as he is on it. Therefore I can absolutely see where playing in the NBA, just because it's "the NBA", might not be enough of a reason on it's own (the way it would be for many of his peers) to keep Childress stateside.

Maybe the money, coupled with the opportunity to travel and see the world, was enough to make him happy - regardless of what it meant to his NBA stature. I think that's entirely possible, even if it's hard for us to understand.

I don't know if Chills' move is a sign of things to come (in the same way Kevin Garnett ushered in the era of prep-to-pros players) or is more the random actions of a single player (think Ricky Williams retiring from the NFL). Only time will tell.

All I know is that, like the rest of us, I was stunned by Chilldress' decision. I honestly don't think the Hawks ever really thought something like this could happen. But regardless of the reasons, it did happen and Josh Childress is gone.

We can lament the situation all we want, but the most important thing now is to figure out how to replace him.

Any ideas?