Milwaukee has appeared to be very active as the trade deadline at 3 p.m. Eastern on Thursday approaches.
Their starting backcourt of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis are free agents this summer — in the case of Jennings it is restricted and the Bucks can match. But they are listening to offers and talking about others, although Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports suggests what they have heard is not enough to move them.
But apparently they are still talking, including one for Magic sharpshooter J.J. Redick, tweets Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.
https://twitter.com/KBergCBS/statuses/303939430664777729
The belief among rival execs is that the Bucks would only acquire Redick if they first decided to move Monta Ellis as part of a bigger deal.
— Ken Berger (@KBergNBA) February 19, 2013
It’s that second part that makes this interesting. As we have noted the Bucks have floated Ellis in a deal for Josh Smith, and while I’m not sold that works for everyone it must be serious enough that the Bucks are thinking about how to fill in the two-guard spot if a deal for Ellis is done (with the Hawks or anywhere).
By the way, if the Hawks made the two deals — some forms of Ellis for Smith and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute for J.J. Redick — they would have three guys who become free agents next summer (Smith, Redick and Jennings) and questions about if they could really match all three.
But it sounds like the Bucks are looking hard at deals as the deadline nears.