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.