A Maryland court this afternoon lifted the ban that it last week placed on the Hawks and Thrashers signing players to multi-year contracts.

The new order states that the Hawks can trade for players who have no more than 4 years remaining on their contract. The same goes for free agent signings.

Any transactions that go beyond the new conditions ? i.e., exceed the salary cap or result in the acquisition of contracts longer than four years ? would require unanimous consent of the Atlanta Spirit board of managers. Essentially, that means Belkin would have to agree with the other owners to make such transactions.