Spurs Get Jefferson, Washington Acquires Miller and Foye

The 2009 NBA Draft goes down tomorrow, and it’s going to be a crazy day. Expect many trades to go down, involving both picks and players. We got a little taste of the action last night and this morning, with two pretty major trades happening. The big news was the Bucks trading Richard Jefferson to the Spurs for Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas and Fabricio Oberto. The Bucks then moved Oberto to the Pistons for Amir Johnson. In the second big trade, the Wizards dealt the No. 5 pick in the upcoming draft along with Oleksiy Pecherov, Etan Thomas, and Darius Songaila to the Minnesota Timberwolves in return for Randy Foye and Mike Miller.

I’ll break the trades down by team and give you my winners and losers.

Spurs: Jefferson averaged 19.6ppg with the Bucks in 08-09, shooting 44% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc. His career averages are 17.7ppg, 5.3rpg and 3.0apg. Jefferson may be a overrated and more than a little overpaid (he’s got two seasons at about $15 million left on his deal), but he’s an incredible guy to have as your fourth option. The Spurs now have a crazy Formidable Four: Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Jefferson. The downside is that they’re now over the cap, and won’t be able to do much to fill out their rotation. Needing Bonner to play big minutes is not the greatest situation.

Bucks: Milwaukee made the move for financial reasons. Bowen and Thomas are in the final year of their deals, and Bowen only has $2 million guaranteed. Expect the Bucks to release him (the Spurs probably don’t have the money to re-sign him). Milwaukee needed the financial leeway badly, as they have two restricted free agents, Villanueva and Sessions, that they really want to re-sign. This move gives them about $7.5 million in cap space, so it will still be tight to get both of those guys back. Getting Amir Johnson for Oberto is a very nice little move. He’s got some upside and a reasonable contract.

Pistons: Oberto only has $1.8 million guaranteed, so the Pistons gain about a million and a half in cap room with the move. They must be gearing up for something big, because they already had tons of cap space. Losing Amir Johnson might hurt though, as he’s a solid backup big.

Winner: San Antonio Spurs
Losers: Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks

Washington Wizards: The Wiz are in a funny situation. They were the worst team in the league last year, and yet the top brass believe they’re a playoff contender. Arenas returning to action has a lot to do with those hopes. They’ve now got a pretty series starting five: Arenas and Foye in the backcourt, Haywood, Jamison and Butler up front. Not bad. Mike Miller coming off the bench is always nice too. All they really had to give up was the No. 5 pick in a weak draft. They also managed to offload the unreasonable contracts of Songaila and Etan Thomas. Giving up Pecherov is no big deal, as he’s unlikely to turn into a major contributor. There are a couple red flags though: Foye is a mid-range volume shooter, much like Arenas, and Mike Miller is coming off the lowest scoring season of his career.