I’ll try and update this post a few times as reactions increase.  Keep checking back.  I’ll attempt to give a heads up when I do it though.

• Brewhoop and Bucksketball are typically on the same page when it comes to Bucks news, so it’s no surprise that they give an endorsement to both deals.
• On the other end of the spectrum, the 48 Minutes of Hell folks are understandably excited to be adding RJ.
• JSOnline and Tuesday’s trades.
• Bucks Diary continues the trade love fest.
• Detroit waves goodbye to The Talented Mr. Johnson.
• Hollinger: He likes. Ford: He likes.
• Bill Simmons: His Twitter does not like.  “Statement just released by Milwaukee Bucks to their fans: ‘Dear fans, go eff yourselves. Die. We hate you. Go away.’”
• Bruce Bowen says goodbye to San Antonio.  Maybe he won’t return after a buyout.
• Bucks.com says goodbye to RJ. ‘”Richard was a true professional during his time in Milwaukee,’ Hammond remarked. ‘He came ready to practice and play every day and always gave it his best effort. We wish him well in San Antonio.’”
• This is not about the Bucks, but here is the first episode of the TrueHoop Network Podcast.  From Hardwood Paroxysm, “On the first edition of the TrueHoop Network Podcast, I talk with Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog about whether Blake Griffin is the savior, check in with Royce Young of Daily Thunder on the value of the 3rd pick, and see just how depressing the state of affairs is in Memphis with Chip Crain of 3 Shades of Blue.”

What has gotten into John Hammond?  When did he become so suave and smooth?  He’s out here like Joe Dumars of three years ago (minus Darko).  There are now reports that he has swapped the expected to be cut Fabricio Oberto for Detroit’s Amir Johnson!

If you’re not familiar with Johnson’s work, and I’m sure most people aren’t, he’s a shot blocking, rebounding, fouling machine.  The 22-year-old semi-veteran had a subpar year last year, but that may have been a product of his minutes being jerked around by new coach Mike Curry.  Before last season he had PER’s of 17 and above in every year of his four year career.  He’s very much an “upside” guy.  The best bet would be that he’ll cut back on his fouls and flash his rebounding shot blocking talent with consistent minutes.

He immediately becomes the best big man athlete the Bucks have had since. . .probably ever.  If he’s able to handle consistent minutes on the court he could be a terrific eraser on defense.  He’s the best shotblocker on the team and can make up for a whole lot of mistakes, if he’s not saddled with foul trouble.  He’ll never be a very polished offensive player, but hopefully he’ll be able to dirty work with the best of them.

To get a guy as talented as Johnson for a player they were going to cut anyway is terrific.  Best of all, Johnson is incredibly affordable.  He has one year left on his deal at 3.67 million.  If the Bucks like what they see, they have a young building block.  If they don’t, it cost them nothing.

The only thing that might be constituted as any sort of downside to this trade is that it wipes out the savings the Buck would have gained by cutting the partially guaranteed contract of Oberto.  As it stands they lose around 1.8 million dollars on this deal.  Considering the little breathing room they’d have if they wanted to keep Charlie V. and Ramon Sessions, that may come into play.

But it looks like Hammond might just be getting started with his wheeling and dealing.  Johnson and Bowen should both be valuable assets in the coming month or two.  As noted at Brewhoop, Bowen’s deal does not guarantee until August 1.  Hammond may be in the process of gathering as many chips as he can.

There is a delightful Amir Highlight Mix here.

So it’s finally done.

After months of attempting to give away Richard Jefferson, the Bucks have succeeded in doing just that by swapping him for Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas.  Or as I call them, the release/buyout special.

I noted this on my twitter post before, but if there is one thing that is clear to me with news of this Richard Jefferson it’s that John Hammond is more interested in fielding a successful basketball team than being a popular man in short term Milwaukee.  And I think that this move definitely puts him on a path towards doing just that.  Let’s break this thing down.

Why did we just trade last season’s best player for three aging role players?
Financially this is a no-brainer.  A Richard Jefferson-Michael Redd led Bucks team was not going to do any better than a first round playoff birth next season.  Sure, that might sell a few more tickets, but ultimately accomplishes nothing.  Jefferson would then be on the hook for an additional season at $15 million.  According to Chad Ford, the Bucks will save $6.35 million next year and then the entire $15 million in 2010-11.  For a team hurting as bad financially as the Bucks, $21 million is a lot of money.  It could be even more if they buy out Kurt Thomas before season’s end.  Thomas has been a solid post defender forever and teams like veteran know-how when the playoffs get near.  Don’t be surprised to see him go before next season’s end.

So what happens to that available money now?
That becomes the most important question for the Bucks.  If they resign Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villanueva they’ll likely move back over the luxury tax line.  The trade leaves them about $10 million under the tax that Herb Kohl can’t be too enthusiastic about paying.  If another team makes a solid offer to Villanueva the Bucks might have to let him go to avoid creating another miserable cap situation for themselves.  Sessions should be a little easier to resign because of the Gilbert Arenas Rule, which is very well explained right here.  Essentially, Sessions won’t be getting more than a mid-level exception offer from another team.

So Sessions is coming back and the Bucks are taking Jordan Hill or DeJuan Blair?
I’m not John Hammond, so I don’t know how things will play out.  But if I were a betting man, I’d bet Ramon Sessions is wearing green and red next year.  On top of that, I don’t think this impacts the Bucks draft that much.  This trade shouts out “WE’RE IN REBUILDING MODE.”  Which is fine, because Larry Harris used to shout out “I KNOW WE’RE NOT VERY GOOD BUT I’M GOING TO TELL YOU WE ARE AND KEEP WASTING MONEY.”  Now we know where things stand.  When teams are in rebuilding mode they need to acquire assets before needs.  If the best player available is a point guard, then the Bucks should take the point guard.  They could play him and Sessions together or work out another deal where they give up whoever this draft pick is to a team willing to take on Michael Redd’s contract.  Cleveland?  Portland?  I don’t know.

To the average fan this deal looks awful.  But John Hammond pulled off a move today his predecessor never would have. . .so I think we’re in good hands.

Nothing is ever as clear as it seems.

When people heard some college kid was floating the sacred $100 million figure out there for his first NBA contract, people took notice, especially business savvy NBA owners.  Sure, Glenn Robinson was a rare college player, averaging over 30 points per game at Purdue, but holding out for $100 million?  As a rookie?

In Black Planet, David Shields book about the 1994-95 Seattle Sonics, there is a quote from Bucks owner Herb Kohl on the Glenn Robinson contract matter, “I was thinking of telling Mr. Robinson, ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll take your contract and you can have my franchise.’”

People saw the big figure in front of the word million and emotions poured out.  Some laughed at the thought that an athlete could be so ignorant as to expect a contract that big.  Others were outraged that contracts had spiraled so out of control.  Eventually the call came for a cap on rookie salaries.  Too much too soon would surely ruin the NBA.

After Robinson’s alleged outrageous demands the rookie scale was instituted in 1995.  The way the system is currently set up teams sign two year contracts with their first round picks and hold team options for the third and fourth years.  After he is chosen with the first pick this year, Blake Griffin will receive in the ballpark of $4,152,900 million.  His actual figure can be 80 percent of that or 120 percent of that, with it usually falling on the high end of the scale.  So basically, Griffin will be playing for what amounts to a mid-level exception for his first four years in the league.

Well, that sounds terrific.  He has to prove himself to get his money.  And on top of that, if rookies aren’t coming in at these horrific prices then more money will be available for veteran players.  So the rookies are getting the shaft in the deal and owners and veterans clean up.

Not exactly.

If the idea was to actually cut down on player salary, then it was a failure.  With Robinson’s proposed $100 million contract over 13 years he would have stood at (roughly) $76,923,076 ten years into his deal.  As a comparison, after six years in the league LeBron James has made(roughly) $46,241,001.  Even estimating a very low $15 million a year in LeBron’s next four years puts him more than $30 million past Robinson at the ten-year point in their respective careers.  I know revenues have gone up and inflation has impacted numbers too, but basically the NBA owners gave up steady payments that sounded like big numbers for nice sounding payments that end up costing them far more.

For the trouble of giving up more money in the long term owners did get rewarded with less control of their players though.  So that’s a plus.

Suddenly first round picks had a lot more freedom.  No longer were they locked into their team for 25 years like Magic Johnson.  If the going got tough, they could get going or use their power to make sure the team got tough.  When LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all declined to sign extensions for more than three years after their rookie deals expired they were letting their teams know they expected to see title contenders by that time.  There would be no wasting of any of their primes with losing teams.  And that is why Toronto find themselves in such a tough spot with Chris Bosh.  If Chris Bosh was drafted in 1993 instead of 2003, Toronto could have locked him up for 15 years assuming both parties kept their sanity (see Webber, Chris and Nelson, Don).  Superagent David Falk expressed his confusion with the NBA’s insistence on changing the structure in his book The Bald Truth.

“Prior to the rookie wage scale . . . Milwaukee locked up No. 1 pick, Glenn Robinson, for ten years with no out.  Why on earth would you ever want to change that system?
(Renegotiating the rookie wages) was a cosmetic victory and neither side understood the future result of their actions.”

If teams are feeling pressure that players are going to bolt then they have to react.  And once players know teams are going to react they use that against them.  That’s how we end up with situations like Vince Carter in Toronto or Baron Davis in New Orleans, all talented players that saw their team was going nowhere and decided they wanted out sooner rather than later.  They knew the teams would cave.

And if you’re a team like Milwaukee or Minnesota or Memphis anywhere else where the market is small and the weather isn’t great you can’t really recoup your losses in free agency.  The biggest splash any of those teams made on the free agent market was probably Milwaukee’s signing of Bobby Simmons.  An overpaid role player was the big signing!  Trading can be an affective way to restore your team’s talent, but usually it just ends up being crap for crap. So the draft becomes that much more important.  If you’re lucky, you end up like San Antonio.  They got a superstar that is committed to the coach and the team and did an admirable job of drafting around him.  His commitment made it much easier though.

Given the general ineptitude of most teams with regard to the draft, hope is a dicey proposition.

Usually teams like the Bucks know their time is running out the second their guy shakes David Stern’s hand.  They no longer have the luxury of building a group together, piece by piece.  And they can thank Glenn Robinson and some overreacting owners for that.