There were plenty of rumblings about Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Smith going to Milwaukee in a blockbuster three-team deal with Orlando, but that trade died when Atlanta reportedly pulled out of the deal.
That trade falling apart didn’t deter the Bucks from acquiring a piece to help them in their playoff push, however. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that the Bucks have acquired Orlando Magic guard J.J. Redick in a six-player deal right at the deadline.
The Milwaukee Bucks receive Redick, Gustavo Ayon and Ish Smith while the Orlando Magic recieve Beno Udrih, Tobias Harris and Doron Lamb.
Milwaukee sends Orlando Doron Lamb, Tobias Harris and Beno Udrih, source tells Y!
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 21, 2013
Orlando sends Ayon and Ish Smith to Milwaukee as part of deal for Redick, source tells Y!
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) February 21, 2013
Let’s start with the big piece, which is Redick. The 28-year-old shooting guard is a career 39.8 percent 3-point shooter and has posted career highs in assists per game (4.4) and points per game (15.1) this season. Redick’s career year coincides with a contract season, as he’ll become an unrestricted free agent after this summer. Redick was one of the most highly sought after pieces at the deadline, and should immediately help the Bucks offense with his shooting and playmaking. Milwaukee is 26-27 on the year, hampered mostly by their 24th ranked offensive efficiency.
Efficiency is really the name of the game for Redick. His 59.2 percent true shooting percentage is right there among the shooting guard elite with guys like Ray Allen and James Harden. Redick has a reputation as just a shooter, but he’s made great strides as a defender and as a great distributor.
Redick has done the majority of his damage for Orlando this year coming off screens and either popping a jumper or slipping a nice pocket pass to a rolling big men. Orlando essentially designed an entire offense around Redick’s skills, but it will be interesting to see how Redick will work alongside two ball dominant guards like Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis. With Redick and Mike Dunleavy both coming off the bench, Milwaukee’s second unit should see a pretty drastic spike in scoring.
To get Redick, the Bucks parted with a couple of interesting prospects in underutilized small forward Tobias Harris and rookie shooting guard Doron Lamb. Backup point guard Beno Udrih -- who was included to match salaries with Redick -- is on an expiring deal and almost certainly won’t factor in Orlando’s plans past the next few months.
Along with Redick, the Bucks received Gustavo Ayon and Ish Smith from Orlando. Ayon is a highly intelligent but very limited young big man, and Ish Smith is a similarly limited point guard with great athleticism, elite floor vision, but no jumper to speak of whatsoever. Smith is a career 36 percent field goal shooter, and a 57 percent free throw shooter.
The main focus in this trade, obviously, is Milwaukee’s addition of Redick. Early chatter says that Milwaukee has interest in re-signing Redick this offseason, which would make sense if Monta Ellis truly did opt out of his contract, as Gery Woefel of Racine Journal Times has speculated. The Bucks have a roster filled with shot blocking bigs who don’t space the floor, which makes a pure shooter like Redick a much better future fit than Ellis, who needs driving lanes to be at his best.
For Orlando, Harris and Lamb are two cheap young players still on rookie deals, which is a huge deal to a rebuilding team. While the original talks centered around Milwaukee possibly sending back Luc Richard Mbah a Moute for Redick, Orlando did well to land Harris instead.
Although he’s only played roughly 800 minutes in two seasons, Harris has been a solid producer in his time on the floor, averaging 15.4 points and 7 rebounds per36 minutes with a PER of 13.8. At just 20 years old, Harris is still a long way from being a known entity -- which could be a great thing for Orlando. Along with Maurice Harkless, who is just 19, the Magic have a small forward combination they can mold and be patient with.
While you can certainly view Orlando losing Redick and not getting a draft pick in return as a bit of a failure, Orlando at least got two young prospects for a player they were likely uninterested in signing had they not moved him today. That’s better than nothing -- especially since they had to take on no future salary to do so.
Milwaukee gets better now with the addition of Redick, but this trade can’t really be graded until this offseason. If the Bucks convince Redick to take a reasonable deal and stay in Milwaukee this offseason, they did very well for themselves. But if Redick and Dunleavy, who both expiring, take bigger deals elsewhere, and if Ellis ends up opting out, the Bucks will have zero returning shooting guards or small forwards on the roster. With Brandon Jennings likely taking up a lot of cap room as a restricted free agent, constructing a suitable wing rotation could be a huge issue going forward.