| 23 June 2009
In a constant battle between R.C. Buford and Bryan Colangelo (that's made up; I have no clue if there is ever a battle, let alone a "constant" one), the San Antonio decided to one-up the Reggie Evans-Jason Kapono trade from earlier this month and acquire Richard Jefferson from the Milwaukee Bucks for Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas, and Fabricio Oberto. It's officially the biggest trade before the 2009 NBA Draft and may hold up that way until Thursday night at 4pm PST. There isn't much question as to why the Spurs would pull the trigger on this deal. They just gave up three players with the average age of 36.3 (according to Lang Whitaker's Twitter), which also is probably their cumulative PER (according to my smartass Twitter). They're acquiring a smooth scoring small forward with the ability to shoot very efficiently from the field if you don't count last year's 43.9% field goal percentage debacle. Sure, he's a bit of a cancer and a total a-hole when it comes to being a good teammate but that could completely change with a change of scenery that involves Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Gregg Popovich.
(By the way, just checked and their cumulative PER is actually LOWER than their average age of 36.3. LOWER! Kurt Thomas rang in at a 14.07, Fabricio Oberto racked up a 10.59 and Bruce Bowen came in strong with a 5.37. Yes, that's correct; his PER last year was a 5.37. Astounding)
As for the Bucks, there really are so many questions that I have, which come from this trade. I don't even know if I can put them into coherent paragraph forms so I think I'll just list them right here:
- Does this void at the small forward position mean that they trust Luc Richard Mbah a Moute or Joe Alexander to fill in that void? Or do they try to acquire someone like Earl Clark?
- If they do go after Earl Clark, do they take him with the 10th pick or do they attempt to acquire an extra asset or two and see if they can get him at 13 or 14?
- What if Jordan Hill falls to them? Is he a no-brainer for John Hammond to go after?
- Do they make a move to acquire someone like Brandon Jennings or Jrue Holiday? They can't rely on Luke Ridnour for anything other than winning Michael Cera look-a-like contests and it would allow them to avoid overpaying Ramon Sessions to keep him running the show. Speaking of...
- Do they re-sign Ramon Sessions now? What is the cut-off of too much money to give him? Do you just wait for another team to offer a contract and then match a hopefully low offer sheet?
- How likely are they to buyout the contracts of Oberto, Thomas, and Bowen? It would save them roughly $4 million by cutting Bruce Bowen (only half of his contract is guaranteed if he's cut before August 1st) along with buyouts for Oberto and Thomas. And do these guys just take their money and return to the Spurs for another title run?
- Are the Bucks going to be able to do anything with this cap flexibility? They're still only a couple of million under the salary cap next off-season with Jefferson off the books. But they do completely avoid any luxury tax approaching.
- My man from TruthAboutIt.Net said this:
So....
Signing Bobby Simmons to an idiotic 5-year, $47 million contract and taking Yi the big softy with the 7th pick becomes Ricard Jefferson becomes 108 total years in old dudes and $11.6 million in expiring contracts.
What will they do with the cap room? Either a big name free agent will spurn them, or they'll have to overpay someone to come.
Way to go Milwaukee ... doing some fine work up there.
Is there any retort to that? They've essentially ended up with nothing from their last three big off-season moves, except for the alienated fanbase and the likelihood that they are avoided by good NBA free agents like the plague or child support payments.
- Fabrico Oberto tweeted this after he found out about the trade, "no se nada todavia...si me entero lo pongo aca ..."
What does that mean?
It's hard to stick up for the small market teams when they continue to make moves like this. This wasn't a basketball move by any means. It was a move to save a struggling franchise over $20 million over the next two seasons. It didn't make them any better and it actually made them quite worse. They can spin it as acquiring veteran help, cap flexibility, and allowing their young guys to step forward into a more prominent role. And that's all fine.
But you just gave away a good scorer with some value on the market for next to nothing. The only move that should accompany, and needs to accompany, this trade is by lowering ticket prices a little bit. If Senator Kohl gets to save money on this move, so should the fans.
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