Not long
ago, I stated that the Warriors needed to take a risk if they were ever going
to be a contending team. Well, they took a risk all right. The Warriors parted
ways with their best offensive weapon in Monta Ellis along with promising big
man Ekpe Udoh to the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for center Andrew Bogut and forward
Stephen Jackson. The team also traded Kwame Brown to the Bucks as a part of the
package.
The move appears to have angered a
lot of Warrior fans as Monta Ellis was the team’s best player and they did not
like seeing him leave for an injury prone center in Bogut and a clubhouse
cancer in Jackson. Not to mention, Bogut
is currently recovering from an ankle injury and may miss the rest of this
season. Stephen Jackson is also currently hurt. So basically, the Warriors
subtracted from their roster. However, I see this as the kind of move the
Warriors had to make. Sure, giving away Ellis will hurt the team’s slim
postseason hopes but this trade will help the Warriors in the long run.
Monta Ellis has been the team’s best
player for many years now and it has gotten the Warriors nowhere. While the
team has been stacked with many guards, they lacked a true center that can play
offense and defense. Getting a center via free agency was going to be tough for
the Warriors, given the team’s reputation as a poorly run organization. So the
only way they would get a great center was through a trade. Ellis was one of
the few players on the Warriors who had any trade value. The team can easily replace guards as there
are more to choose from in the NBA. The Warriors
also have players like Klay Thompson who can fill in for Ellis currently. Finding centers are tougher to get, however.
So when a team offers a center like Bogut for Ellis, you take it.
Bogut is a big center who can score
a decent amount of points but more importantly he can rebound and play defense.
On defense, Bogut gets a great number of blocked shots and that is something
the Warriors can use to help improve what has lately been a poor defensive
team. Bogut is also only 27 years old so he is just entering the prime of his
career and is still under contract for a few more years. This means Bogut can
help out the Warriors for years to come. The biggest problem with Bogut is that
he gets injured a lot but when he’s healthy, he is an effective player. That is a risk the Warriors were willing to
take and it is the kind of risk I felt the Warriors needed to make to help the
future of the team.
This was not a trade to help the team this year as Bogut may
not play this season. The Warriors are not going to the playoffs this year, no
matter how much the Warriors may have thought they would. Their chances were so
low at making the playoffs that it was not worth missing out on the opportunity
to build for the future. By trading for the future, the team may now struggle
to win many games but at least they will have a shot at a high draft pick.
Giving away Kwame Brown does not hurt the Warriors in this
trade as he was hurt for most of this year and wasn’t going to return next year
anyways. The only player I wish the Warriors didn’t give up was Ekpe Udoh as I
thought he had a lot of promise as a defensive player and as a center for the
Warriors in the future. However, Bogut is a player who has already developed
while Udoh still is years away from reaching his potential.
As far as Stephen Jackson goes, I was shocked that the
Warriors even thought about bringing him back after the problems he caused the
franchise the last time he was on the team. However, to get a player like
Bogut, you have to take the players that the other team is desperately trying
to get rid of and it was clear Milwaukee wanted to get rid of Jackson. Best
case scenario is that the Warriors trade Jackson in the offseason and get other
players that can help the team for next year. If not, who knows, maybe Jackson
can still help the team. Jackson did help lead the Warriors to the playoffs in
2007 for the first time in many years and he also plays good defense. All we
can hope for is that Jackson is not a clubhouse problem.
In general, I like this trade because it meets the Warriors
needs for a center and it was risky trade that I encouraged the Warriors to
make. Now the Warriors have some hope for the future.
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