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Hawks trade rumors: Nets, Bucks leaders in Josh Smith sweepstakes

With about 24 hours to go before the NBA trade deadline, there's still plenty of suitors for Josh Smith, but the Hawks aren't getting the value in return they want. Packages including Kris Humphries and Monta Ellis appear to be the leaders.

By Rodger Sherman
Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

The Josh Smith trade wheel spins on, with the departure of the Hawks' hyper-athletic small forward seemingly imminent. Let's track down all the potential trade options Atlanta has with just about 24 hours left to go until the deadline

For starters, let's take a look at SB Nation's roundtable, where Hawks, Nets, Suns, and Celtics bloggers - as well as Mike Prada, SB Nation's NBA editor - discussed potential destinations for Smith. Now let's go team-by-team:

- Both Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! and USA Today report the same package from the Brooklyn Nets for Smith: Kris Humphries, MarShon Brooks, and a future first-round draft pick. Humphries is most famous for his reality TV exploits, but he would reproduce Smith's rebounding production at the four, while Brooks proved himself as a decent scorer at the shooting guard position as a rookie, and even though he's fallen out of the rotation his second year, he'd provide some nice depth with Lou Williams out. Plus, there's upside with him and the pick

- The Bucks are pitching Monta Ellis to the Hawks, per Marc Stein of ESPN.com, a deal SB Nation's Brew Hoop wrote about Tuesday night. Ellis would pair well with Jeff Teague in the backcourt for Atlanta.

- The last strong contender to land Smith is the Phoenix Suns, who inquired, but likely wouldn't be willing to give up Marcin Gortat.

- The Hawks looked into the possibility of bringing Dwight Howard back to his hometown, but the Lakers weren't interested. There's talk he'll make a homecoming when he becomes a free agent this summer, but that doesn't seem likely.

- The Wizards, previously considered a possible destination, are seemingly out of the hunt, per Sam Amick and Jeff Zilgitt of USA Today Sports.

It's likely that the longer this goes on, the worse it is for the Hawks. Peachtree Hoops wrote about how the team is struggling to find value, and Tom Ziller of SB Nation simply said that the team is trying to find leverage where there is none.

The consensus remains that Smith will be dealt. In fact, other teams are waiting on it:

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.