Couple Trades Leading Up to Draft Night

The Washington Wizards are close to a deal that would send the No. 5 pick in Thursday's draft, Oleksiy Pecherov, Etan Thomas and Darius Songaila to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Randy Foye and Mike Miller.

The deal would give the Timberwolves the 5,6,18 and 28 picks in the first round of the draft this year. New GM David Kahn certainly must be exciting the 7 or 8 people out there rooting on the T'Wolves, after dealing with Kevin McHale for about 15 years too long, he finally ended that relationship and now is looking to wheel and deal - rumor has it the Wolves are not yet done and may be looking to trade up again. Speculation is they want Tyreke Evans..and would be interested in Curry, Flynn or Thabeet as well. NBA Draft Net has them taking Curry and Jordan Hill. The Evans thing seems like a smokescreen to me. While Minnesota is now clearly shorter on guards than big men, I think Thabeet would be the type of center necessary next to Jefferson and Love, the Wolves two best players. Clearly they will need to add a guard or two, but does Sebastian Telfair finally get a legitimate shot at running a NBA club? All I know is this is a team in serious need of a shot-blocker and a scoring guard. I'm not exactly sure how they'll make it out of the draft with both, but if so this team may be finally headed in the right direction.

As for the Wizards: I like both Foye and Miller. Miller can stroke it from deep and rebounds very well for his position, coming off an injury-filled season, he should be able to bounce back and give the Wiz some additional outside shooting. Foye can also allow Gil to play his true position as a flat-out scorer off the ball. It has undoubtedly created a bit of a log-jam with Foye, Gil, Miller, Butler, Jamison, Nick Young and company..so perhaps the Wiz are not done dealing themselves. What this deal perhaps best indicates is that the Wiz didn't like what they felt they'd be looking at at 5 and must feel Thabeet will be off the board, as he would seemingly be an absolute no-brainer for them.

Meanwhile the Spurs acquired Richard Jefferson from the Bucks for Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas. They also sent Oberto to Detroit for Amir Johnson who was also packaged with Bowen and Thomas to the Bucks. Clear salary cap move for the Bucks here and another shrewd move by the Spurs. As the biggest Richard Jefferson hater you will find, he is a very nice fit in San An. Meanwhile the Bucks save money but it's hard to believe they will use it wisely, if at all - this is one of the league's absolute worst franchises and they should be dreadful again next year and for years to come. With the 10th pick, they are unlikely to get an impact player, and I think Joe Alexander would rather win the dunk contest than a NBA game.

Update on the NBA Draft Net mock, they seem to have basically reordered the top:

Clips - Griffin (obviously)
Memphis - Thabeet (interesting debate as to what they'll do here, I think this is what they'll do)
OKC - Harden (team has to be praying Thabeet drops to them, otherwise they have an incredibly tough decision, as someone who never liked Westbrook I think Rubio makes the most sense and is the best fit here - perfect compliment to an absolute stud in Durant)
Sactown - Rubio (Would be thrilled with Rubio I'm sure, and have the unfortunate luxury of basically being able to go Best Player Available regardless of position, this team is beyond-belief bad)
Minn - Curry
Minn - Jordan Hill (lol, this makes no sense and would be such a bad move, why is Jordan Hill considered a top-10 lock????)
Golden St - Jennings (no clue what GS should or will do, absolutely no clue)
Knicks - Evans (can't argue with it, I love Evans's upside and versatility...ah fuck it, who I am kidding, SET THE GARDEN ON FIRE DONNIE, GIVE US FLYNN...seriously has anyone considered the garden crowd and how they will be chanting for Johnny Flynn all night? Since St. John's has been terrible since Erik Barkley left, Syracuse has stolen most of the New York college hoops fan base..fans are going to be demanding J-Flynn and I can't lie, I hope they get him, the Knicks need a NY point guard to get excited about, after the Starbury debacle, only Flynn turning into a stud can alleviate the pain)
Toronto - Derozan (don't like him)
Milwaukee - Flynn (or can they get an impact guy at 10 after all?)
New Jersey - Gerald Henderson (another underwhelming Dukie, perfect fit in Jersey)
Charlotte - Hansbrough (seems about right for him...the late 1st round stuff was ridiculous and most of you know what I call Hansfa...uhh Hansbrough...too productive not to take a flyer on before the likes of James Johnson, BJ Mullens and Victor Claver start flying off the board.
Indiana - Earl Clark (Enigma)