Paul Millsap Says Hawks Never Made Contract Offer Before Nuggets Agreement

Paul Millsap is headed to the Denver Nuggets after agreeing to a three-year contract worth $90 million, per Shams Charania of The Vertical. 

While the Atlanta Hawks will receive nothing in return after Millsap's four years with the team, they didn't give him much of a choice, as he explained to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

"It was pretty simple. Denver, they came and they've been wanting me for years. They made that known. The presentation that they gave me, it felt comfortable, it felt real. At the end of the day it was going to be the team that I felt most comfortable with and Atlanta. Atlanta decided to go another direction. They didn't want to make an offer. So it was pretty simple. Denver was the team."

Millsap earned an All-Star selection in each season he played in Atlanta.

After choosing not to trade Millsap at last year's deadline, the Hawks appeared lukewarm about retaining him once the season ended.

"We'd like to have him," new general manager Travis Schlenk said in June, per Vivlamore. "The reality is, he might get better offers than we can make him."

As it turns out, any offer was better since the Hawks made no attempt to retain him.

Atlanta won 60 games three years ago with four All-Stars on the roster, but all four are now with other teams as the squad enters a rebuild. After trading away Dwight Howard earlier in the offseason, the Hawks now only have Dennis Schroder and Kent Bazemore with high-priced contracts on the books for multiple years.

Meanwhile, Millsap joins a Nuggets squad that finished just out of the playoffs last year and should be able to compete in what has become an increasingly cutthroat Western Conference.