Caron Butler traded to Bucks for Ish Smith and Kratsov

[NerdsterBuck]

I don't know what picks or pick are involve in this deal, but I don't think this deal is worth a first or future first at all.

[Max Green]

I don't know what picks or pick are involve in this deal, but I don't think this deal is worth a first or future first at all.

There are no picks involved, just Ish Smith and Slava Kratsov for Butler.

[Nebula1]

Nothing against Butler as a player or person, especially as a Racine guy, but I can't support this move. Giannis is about to be buried Bucks-style.

Ridnour
Mayo/Neal
Butler/Delfino
Ilyasova
Pachulia

FTW. I don't know what the total salaries but I'm guessing it could have helped towards a new arena.

so.. Free Giannis. Might as well get in early.

[jr lucosa]

The Clippers were after Jared Dudley. They weren't giving up anything significant for the free agent JJ Redick. They could've and still made the trade of Bledsoe & Butler for Dudley with or without acquiring Redick from us. We had little leverage at all since JJ would've just signed with Minny or signed with the Clippers for less many if we didn't do the sign and trade.

Yep, this is a very meh move imo, but it confirms what some of us were speculating when that trade went down, that we did not have a legit shot at Bledsoe (without giving up more assets).

[Nebula1]

Horrendous move. Doesn't impact wins significantly at all, worsens our 13-14 flexibility, and lowers Gianni's minutes. This front office sucks.

What's also exciting is the FO will (likely) avoid using the D system and we won't see Giannis at all. Wolters will probably get some D time, but Giannis might as well get comfortable in Tobes' old office.

[Thunder Muscle]

I didn't realize a pick wasn't involved, well that's good. So I guess Butler would start and then Middleton/Delfino (if healthy) get the back-up minutes. Giannis will be pretty limited, which is what we kind of expected.

For me, this trade makes sense since you gave up nothing to get him BUT the signing of Delfino looks kind of questionable now. Basically could've had Butler for 8M and saved paying similar for Carlos.

We'll see how Larry Drew handles the rotations.

[Nebula1]

Lifted from the Phoenix board:

Also... glad I'm not a Bucks fan. From their board:

I want everyone to realize that of all the cap space we were able to have this offseason, we used $12.048537 mil on Carlos Delfino, Gary Neal, and Caron Butler.

$17.248537 mil on Delfino, Neal, Butler, and Zaza.

We used $30 mil on Delfino, Neal, Butler, Zaza, Ridnour, and Mayo. I can't recall a less effective use of $30 mil of cap space in the history of the NBA. And I have paid VERY close attention to how teams use cap space since 1994...

Thats pretty astounding. On top of that they've recently traded Bogut for Ellis, then let Ellis walk as a FA, and 21 year old big man Tobias Harris for JJ Redick... Harris averaged 17 and 8.5 for Orlando and the Bucks flipped JJ for two future 2nd round picks.

Unbelievable. Its a level of incompetence that would make Isiah Thomas blush. I'd like to officially nominate John Hammond for worst active GM in the league. He can clone dinosaurs but he sure can't run a franchise.

Answers my question: $30M not used for an arena.


Free Giannis

[paulpressey25]

I think you said it right the first time. Create a team that loses a ton of games, then watch that team turn into the Bobcats.

I always find it fascinating that the Bucks organization front office guys and Kohl himself typically gravitate towards the worst run team in the league, and point that that organization as the reason why the lotto doesn't work.

Five years ago the name tossed out was the Clippers. They have been terribly run, but even they got Blake Griffin out of the high lotto and now are very relevant.

Every year these guys justify their jobs by pointing out that we are better than whoever is a bottom three franchise at that moment in time.

[Buckrageous]

Hey Herb instead of burning that $8 mil on Butler, how about you put that towards a new arena? If we do that every time you want to hand out a stupid contract or bring in a player we don't need we will have that arena in no time.

My thoughts exactly. They are paying Carlos Delfino and Caron Butler about $12,000,000 this year. I'm shocked there isn't more public support for a tax to pay for an arena. Who wouldn't want to dig in their pockets and help pay for these astute moves they keep making?

[emunney]

I think you said it right the first time. Create a team that loses a ton of games, then watch that team turn into the Bobcats.

I always find it fascinating that the Bucks organization front office guys and Kohl himself typically gravitate towards the worst run team in the league, and point that that organization as the reason why the lotto doesn't work.

Five years ago the name tossed out was the Clippers. They have been terribly run, but even they got Blake Griffin out of the high lotto and now are very relevant.

Every year these guys justify their jobs by pointing out that we are better than whoever is a bottom three franchise at that moment in time.

And three years later, two of those teams are better than us.

[REDDzone]

Dropped in to say LOL @ Hammonds.

[BucksBrew]

I didnt read this whole post so excuse me if this has been brought up.

WTF are we doing

We turn down Bledsoe because we didnt want Butler then we turn around and trade for Butler FML I hate this team

Im so annoyed by this news right now

Im done ranting time to go to work

[Thunder Muscle]

Could signal that Delfino is hurt worse then we thought. So long as Caron takes his minutes and not Giannis/Middleton's I'm fine with it. Thankfully no picks...

I'm guessing so too. Training camp surprisingly is only about a month away and if Delfino is nowhere close to being ready, I'm guessing they decided to pursue Butler since the cost was 2 guys that weren't going to make the team anyway.

But if Delfino is healthy, then this doesn't make much sense to me.

[ReasonablySober]

This was the ideal move to finish the roster from a stealth tank perspective. The worry if you wanted a top ten pick next season was the Bucks were going to add a guy who added wins. They didn't, it didn't cost them anything, it didn't affect next summer, and it takes away minutes from a guy in Middleton who would have been better.

Yanni was never going to get legit NBA minutes and Middleton is still here for three more seasons.

I want losses this year and if this is the final "roster finishing" move I'm totally fine with that. We're still looking at a ceiling of 10th in the East, likely 11th and there's the potential to be much worse with one injury.

[Rockmaninoff]

I didnt read this whole post so excuse me if this has been brought up.

WTF are we doing

We turn down Bledsoe because we didnt want Butler then we turn around and trade for Butler FML I hate this team

Im so annoyed by this news right now

Im done ranting time to go to work

That was just baseless speculation like a lot of things around here repeated as fact.

I agree with Max Green (and thought at the time) that the Redick wasn't enough to get Bledsoe.

[fam3381]

We turn down Bledsoe because we didnt want Butler then we turn around and trade for Butler FML I hate this team.

I've seen this alluded to previously--is this just something that people started assuming when they didn't get Butler in the original deal or was there any basis to it? Doesn't make any sense to me, even if Butler's salary became more palatable over the course of the summer as the Bucks missed out on better ways to spend their money.

EDIT: Just saw Rock's post.

[EastSideBucksFan]

We turn down Bledsoe because we didnt want Butler then we turn around and trade for Butler FML I hate this team.

I've seen this alluded to previously--is this just something that people started assuming when they didn't get Butler in the original deal or was there any basis to it? Doesn't make any sense to me, even if Butler's salary became more palatable over the course of the summer as the Bucks missed out on better ways to spend their money.

EDIT: Just saw Rock's post.

Some writer laid out that we didn't want Butler's salary.....I can't remember who it was and I can't find the article.....but it was put out there by a real national writer....makes sense because Bucks didn't want to blow their cap space because we thought we could convince Monta or Jennings to stay and take our money.

[emunney]

I didnt read this whole post so excuse me if this has been brought up.

WTF are we doing

We turn down Bledsoe because we didnt want Butler then we turn around and trade for Butler FML I hate this team

Im so annoyed by this news right now

Im done ranting time to go to work

That was just baseless speculation like a lot of things around here repeated as fact.

I agree with Max Green (and thought at the time) that the Redick wasn't enough to get Bledsoe.

It's still crazy to me that people think that. Clips made that trade because of how much sense the total return made for them.

Maybe we weren't all that interested in Bledsoe at all. That's plausible to me. Maybe we didn't try to get Butler at that time because we thought we could make better use of the cap space at that time. Plausible. But to suggest that we wanted Bledsoe, and could have had him had we taken on Butler, another player we wanted? Crazy. To suggest that had we offered to take Butler and throw in Udoh, that would would have been more appealing to the Clippers than what they ended up with, or even than just waiting for something better? That they wouldn't have known they could do better? Crazy.

[SkilesTheLimit]

That cap space $ was burning a hole in Kohl's pockets.

What an absolutely irrelevant/incompetent move. We got Butler to Milwaukee, finally. It's only 6 years past his prime.

They're truly obsessed with being Miami's tune-up in the first round, aren't they? You'd have thought they would be embarrassed how abused they got last year in the playoffs and how the rest of the league laughed at our FO with their feet in quicksand all the time.

In a draft where the top 7 could be potential "star"/all-star players, we go and get more mediocre. Pick a **** direction and stick to it.

[EastSideBucksFan]

This should at least kill any chance of Marquis Daniels returning.

Thought he had a solid chance of coming back since he was on the Pacers with Morway.