Woelfel: Memphis deal "virtually agreed on," awaiting Kohl's OK

by Frank Madden on Jan 12, 2009 12:32 PM CST

Dave Babcock and company liked Conley in June 2007, too

Following up on yesterday's post about the proposed Conley for Sessions/Alexander deal, Gery Woelfel reported today that the deal is much more than a rumor:

I’ve been told both teams have virtually agreed on the conditions of the trade and only Bucks owner Herb Kohl had to give his stamp of approval. Bucks general manager John Hammond, reached in North Carolina where he was on a scouting trip, said it was his policy not to comment on any trade speculation.

According to Woelfel, the Bucks would also likely receive a future pick, though no word beyond that. As far as I know, the Grizz have the Lakers' 2010 first rounder from the Pau Gasol deal (top six protected) in addition to their own picks. Obviously if the Bucks got the Grizzlies' pick in the upcoming draft it would be fairly valuable if there weren't any protections on it; with today's standings, the Grizz would be seventh in the lottery.

However, signing that pick would also add a few million to the Bucks' 09/10 cap number, so if the Bucks are making this deal largely as a tax move then they'd probably prefer not to have two first rounders in the upcoming draft. The Bucks supposedly wanted to trade out of the lottery last June as well.

I can't say I'm a big fan of this deal, though it's always hard to get excited about deals that are at least partially motivated by caponomics. Fortunately, Conley still has plenty of upside, though at this point Sessions has been notably more productive as a pro and Alexander has his own upside as well. Stay tuned.

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Deal

Frank first of all love the blog. Have you heard anything new on this rumor? To me the deal only makes sense if we get a 1st round pick in 09 or 2010 and we get out from underneath Gadzuric’s deal. Getting flexibility under the tax to me points out that we are going to try and match any offer on Charlie V after the season. Though I wouldnt be opposed to a sign and trade deal an effort to get more toughness on our frontline. Either way we need to get under the luxury tax to do so. I guess I dont see why the Grizz do this deal unless they are really high on JA.

by madmully55 on Jan 13, 2009 12:44 PM CST reply actions

Thanks MM, I’m about to post a little more on this…some talk in Memphis that the Bucks might be backing out. It is interesting that this trade would imply the Bucks either a) simply would rather keep CV b) think that the cost of keeping Sessions will be too high relative to what CV will get c) can just get a lot more value for Sessions in a trade than they can for CV. I’d always assumed CV would be the first guy to go, so my guess is that c) is the reason we’d see this deal rather than a Villanueva deal.

www.BrewHoop.com

by Frank Madden on Jan 13, 2009 2:25 PM CST reply actions