NBA

With the NBA Draft looming, a few teams have been extremely busy on the trade front before draft night.

First off, the Milwaukee Bucks sent their star Small Forward, Richard Jefferson, to the Spurs.  Jefferson was only with the Bucks for a year, but with the Bucks trying to clear cap space, they had to send him packing.  And coming back their way, they received the Spurs Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas.  The Bucks are trying to get under the cap so they can sign Charlie Villanueva and Ramon Sessions this summer and not go over the cap limit. This will add defense to a Bucks team, but more notably is that this is a key addition to the Spurs.  Jefferson will give them strong defense, and take some of the load off an aging Tim Duncan.

Elsewhere, a huge trade between the Washington Wizards and Minnesota Timberwolves.  There was a lot of speculation that the Wizards were looking to deal their #5 pick (as nobody there really fills their need), and that’s exactly what they did.  They sent the #5 pick, Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila and Oleksiy Pecherov to Minnesota in return for sharp shooting small forward Mike Miller and up-and-coming point guard Randy Foye.  This is a great deal for both teams.  Having Miller and Foye will put the Wizards back in the playoffs and give them some depth at positions where they have been plagued by injuries.

And for Minnesota… this is GIGANTIC.  Minnesota now has 4 first-round picks in Thursday’s draft, including 2 Top 10 consecutive picks (5 and 6).  There’s a lot of speculation as to what they might do.  Some think they will add two solid rookies to the roster.  Others think they will package the #5 pick, a later first round, and possibly a player in exchange for Memphis’ #2 pick.  With this, they could take Ricky Rubio, giving them a skilled backcourt (and this may be why they traded point guard Randy Foye), or they might want to march out an ENORMOUS super-athletic front court by drafting Hasheem Thabeet.  This means, their down low presence would be Thabeet, last year’s lottery pick Kevin Love, and their emerging superstar Al Jefferson.  Now that’s a force to be reckoned with.  Plus they could draft a new point guard with the #6 spot (possibly Stephan Curry).  That would take Minnesota from a basement team to an up-and-comer (similar to the Chicago Bulls this year).  This would certainly change the attitude of the Minnesota sports team.

Question is… will they have Brett Favre to root for next year too?