Fresh from the offseason, a few teams have started positioning themselves on the trading block already.
Richard Jefferson with wife Teresa Lourenco. Picture courtesy of Hogwild.net
In a trade involving four players, the Milwaukee Bucks traded veteran athlete and scorer Richard Jefferson for three key role but aging players of the San Antonio Spurs in Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto, and Kurt Thomas. Though a perennial small forward in the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks decided to ship “RJ” to the Spurs due to tax considerations. They would rather let go of RJ than relieve the team of sharpshooting guard Michael Redd and/or a strong inside presence in Andrew Bogut. This gives the Spurs the much needed scoring production that the team sorely lacked in the recently concluded NBA playoffs where they bowed out to the Dirk Nowitzki-led Dallas Mavericks. This Dallas team was eventually eliminated by the Denver Nuggets, who then were eliminated by the 2009 NBA Champions and Kobe Bryant-led Los Angeles Lakers.
Milwaukee eventually traded Fabricio Oberto for Detroit Pistons foward Amir Johnson, who has not seen much significant playing time throughout his career with the Pistons.
Randy Foye. Picture courtesy of Nike.com
The Minnesota Timberwolves, on the other hand, have continued their rebuilding process with early trades as well. In exchange for their guard Randy Foye and potent shooter Mike Miller, the Twolves got the No. 5 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, and Oleksiy Pecherov all from the Washington Wizards. This leaves the Twolves with a staggering four first round draft choices for the upcoming NBA Draft. The Wizards, on the other hand, will get more offensive support with Foye and Miller, hopefully to back up the team’s own Big Three in Agent Zero Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison.
This year’s NBA Draft features high prospects such as Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet, and Spanish guard Ricky Rubio among others.
