Hawks GM: Paul Millsap 'might get better offers than we can make him'

Power forward opted out of the final year of his contract to become a free agent this summer

It appears the Hawks are heading for another interesting summer as they try to hang onto forward Paul Millsap. Last summer, they lost Al Horford in free agency and replaced him by signing Dwight Howard, so the front office is facing another fight to keep a key frontcourt performer. 

Millsap has been an integral piece the past four seasons, but decided to opt out of the final year of his deal to become a free agent. Atlanta would love to keep Millsap, but new GM Travis Schlenk has indicated Millsap likely will not be offered a max deal.

That comes from a report by Chris Vivlamore, which also notes that Schlenk said Millsap "might get better offers than we can make him." Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

New general manager Travis Schlenk told to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that retaining Millsap remains a priority. However, he acknowledged that Millsap may receive better offers elsewhere as an unrestricted free agent next month.

"We are going to make Paul our best offer," Schlenk said this week. "Will he have better offers? I don't know. Do we want to keep Paul? Sure. I said last week, if you are building a team with all the things I've said, Paul checks all those boxes. He's a hard-worker. He's a good guy. He's high-character. Skilled. He does all that stuff. We'd like to have him. The reality is, he might get better offers than we can make him."

In his report, Vivlamore notes Millsap is eligible to make $205M over five years on a max deal from the Hawks. If he leaves, the most he could make is $152M over four years. 

The Hawks are in an interesting spot. They seemed to be ready to tear things down in the middle of the season, as they gave away Kyle Korver for basically nothing, but rallied to finish as the East's No. 5 seed before losing to the Washington Wizards in six games in the first round of the playoffs.