(Boulder-CO) Marc Stein is reporting for www.ESPN.com that Earl Boykins and Julius Hodge are being shipped to Milwaukee for former Maryland Terp Steve Blake. I am not going to steal Stein’s thunder and give you all the details surrounding the trade, but I will say that the writing has been on the wall for all the Nuggets faithful to read and a trade has finally happened. Check out all the aforementioned details by clicking this link:
Blake is a pass-first guard that has been part of championship caliber teams in the past with the University of Maryland. The 6’3” 170lb guard has career averages six points, three assists, and 1.7 rebounds. His overall numbers on the season have slipped a touch below his career averages, but so have his minutes per game.
The Nuggets needed to move some players to accommodate the salary-cap nightmare looming in the future and the odd man out unfortunately was Earl “The Mightiest Micro” Boykins. Best of luck to Earl in the future with the Bucks as it has been exciting to witness his skills with the Nuggets.
2 comments:
Stumble,
Blake is a career 37.7% from downtown. Not bad, not great.
Thanks for reading,
The Nugg Doctor
Those of you that just look at this trade merely from the standpoint of player personnel might scratch your heads. Earl Boykins and Julius Hodge for Steve Blake? It doesn't seem like equal value.
But...when you truly look at what Denver did by completing this trade, it makes plenty of sense.
From a financial perspective:
Denver in one move guaranteed to not pay the luxury tax this season, as the trade exception they received from Milwaukee does not count towards the cap. They save the amount of money they needed to get underneath the luxury tax. So from a financial perspective, it was a very good move.
From a personnel perspective:
1. Guaranteed that we do not lose Boykins in the offseason (when he ops out of his contract) for nothing.
2. Not to be overlooked, we now have a 2.5 million dollar trade exception, that expires one year from today. That is a nice pawn to have in your back pocket for potential off-season moves (or even in-season trades).
From a basketball perspective:
We now finally have a pass first Point Guard. There was a major reason Denver was trying to acquire AI without giving up Andre Miller. The reason being is that both AI and Earl Boykins are shoot first Point Guards - Earl to an even more extreme degree. We simply had to have a point guard that can just come in and distribute to all the scorers on this team, and not whine about it. Steve Blake will remind no one of a great player, but is maybe a poor mans version of Luke Ridnour. He can hit the 3 pointer with fairly good consistency and can just manage a game.
So to summarize, this move was a great trade not because of who we got, but because of who we lost! In other words, with the team assembled how it is, Boykins does not fit this team. Blake does, and in the meantime, the team saves money.
Great trade by a great front office!!
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