As a long-time (and sometimes-proud) Bucks fan, my NBA objectivity goes out the window whenever my favorite team makes a big transaction. I start to look at it from the perspective of “my Bucks” and don’t really care what kind of an effect the move has on the other team.

But in this John Salmons-for-Elson/Thomas (or Warrick/Alexander) deal, the Bulls’ new-found financial freedom might come back to haunt the Bucks. Without Salmons’ salary ($5.8 million) on the books for next season, the Bulls would project to have more than $18 million in cap space heading into this summer’s free agency. That’s enough to sign LeBron James, Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh. Without this trade, the Bulls would have a tough time signing a “max” player.

So by taking on Salmons and his contract, the Bucks may have increased their chances of becoming first round fodder in the postseason, but they also increased the chances of a top 5 player joining their bitter rival. They already have LeBron in the division — now they may have to deal with D-Wade, too?

While I can understand the deal that includes Kurt Thomas and Francisco Elson, I don’t get why the Bucks would include Warrick in the trade, seeing as how he has been a valuable rotation player — 10-4 in 21 minutes per game — throughout the season. In other words, I’m not sure how a Salmons-for-Warrick swap gets the Bucks that much closer to the postseason that it would justify the added expense next season and the increased likelihood that Dwyane Wade will land in Chicago.

After a shaky start — trading for Richard Jefferson, drafting Joe Alexander, trading away Mo Williams — GM John Hammond has had a nice year, unloading Jefferson’s huge contact, acquiring Ersan Ilyasova and Carlos Delfino, and most importantly, drafting Brandon Jennings. Unlike most teams, the Bucks are stockpiling cap space for the summer of 2011, when they currently project to have $25 million (or more) in cap space and only seven players under contract. He has the Bucks in position to bounce back over the next couple of seasons, but it won’t matter if Cleveland and Chicago are dominating the division.

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Multiple media outlets have reported that the Rockets and Kings have struck a deal that involves sharpshooting off guard Kevin Martin.

…the Kings and Rockets have agreed in principle to a deal that would send Kevin Martin and three other players to Houston in return for McGrady and forwards Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey.

But that might just be the start.

As the teams hammer out the details today, there are reports the Knicks are still involved, intent on landing McGrady and unloading Jared Jeffries.

If no deal with the Knicks is made, the Rockets and Kings are still expected to go through with the swap.

The Rockets couldn’t come to terms with the Knicks because they were reluctant to take on Jared Jeffries’ contract without owning the Knicks’ future first rounders. They’ve reportedly coveted Martin all along, so when he became available, they went out and struck a deal with the Kings.

If it stays simply a Sacramento-Houston deal, the Rockets will have essentially landed Martin at the cost of Carl Landry and the undead body of Tracy McGrady. While Houston fans will be sad to see Landry go, they’ll be getting a dynamic shooting guard and one of the best scorers in the game. Alongside Aaron Brooks, the Rockets will have one of the great young backcourts in the league.

And the amazing thing is that it doesn’t appear that the Rockets will take on any long-term contracts other than Martin’s.

As for the Kings, they wanted a big man for Martin and they got a pretty good one in Landry, who is averaging 16-6 with 55% shooting. I’m not sure how he fits in with Jason Thompson and Omri Casspi, but he’s probably better than Thompson and Casspi can play small forward, so there should be room for all three. If the Kings are able to move T-Mac to New York, they’ll likely have to take on Jared Jeffries’ contract — he’s owed $6.9 million for next season — and will probably get a draft pick as well.

If the Knicks can clear Jeffries from the payroll, they’ll have enough cap space to sign two big name free agents this summer.

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According to Chad Ford’s source in the Suns organization, the Heat aren’t serious in their bid for Amare Stoudemire.

Still, sources close to the negotiations say that, right now, Cleveland is the front-runner. Why? Because the Heat have yet to offer the Suns a deal that would beat the Cavs’ offer of Zydrunas Ilgauskas and J.J. Hickson. One source familiar with the negotiations told ESPN.com that the Heat have yet to offer Michael Beasley or either of their two first-round picks.

“I’m not sure Miami is willing to pay the price for Amare,” a Suns source told ESPN.com. “We have to get something for him. We’re not giving him away. If Miami gets serious, then I think they would get him. But right now, they are not showing they’re serious.”

Is there a possibility Stoudemire won’t be traded at all?

“It’s possible,” the Suns source said. “We haven’t been blown away with an offer yet.”

I’m sure the Heat would like to acquire Stoudemire without including Beasley, but with Stoudemire likely opting out of his deal this summer, there’s no upside for the Suns to just dump his contract. The Heat have two first round picks (their own and Toronto’s) — would the Suns would move Amare for two middling first rounders?

Another aspect of this Amare love triangle is Miami’s desire to sign LeBron James this offseason. If they let the Cavs acquire Amare, there’s a better chance that LeBron will stay in Cleveland long-term. In other words, if they miss out on Amare, they may very well miss out on LeBron as well.

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Knicks beat writer Alan Hahn just tweeted that Nate Robinson has been traded to the Celtics, likely for Eddie House. Meanwhile, Adrian Wojnarowski says that it’s not a done deal.

Robinson has been in and out of Mike D’Antoni’s doghouse all season, mainly because he doesn’t play point guard the way that D’Antoni wants him to. However, he has posted a career high in assist ratio (the percentage of a player’s possessions that end in an assist) with 21.3%, so he has improved in that area of the game. Conversely, his turnover ratio — 10.1% — is his highest since his rookie season, so that’s a problem.

The Celtics are just going to ask him to come off the bench and score, and he should be very productive in that role. His PER (17.95) is #11 amongst point guards and scoring has never been a problem. He is one of the league’s best athletes and should add significant punch to the Celtics’ rotation.

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With centers Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla sidelined, the Trail Blazers have acquired Marcus Camby.

The Portland Trail Blazers have acquired the Clippers’ Marcus Camby, the center they’ve desperately needed since they lost both Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla to season-ending injuries.

In return, Los Angeles receives point guard Steve Blake and small forward Travis Outlaw.

Portland will also send $1.5 million to Los Angeles in the trade and is responsible for $2 million in incentives Camby will earn before season’s end, sources said Tuesday.

This is a fairly low-risk move for the Blazers, since Camby is in the last year of his contract. Blake and Outlaw are also in the final years of their respective deals, and there’s a good chance that neither player would be back next season, so why not make a move for one of the best defensive centers in the league?

At 35 years-old, Camby is averaging 8-12 with almost two blocks per game, so he should be able to shore up Portland’s interior defense and rebounding. His PER (18.54) is #13 amongst centers, though Camby has been playing mostly power forward this season.

For the Clippers, the prize of this trade is Outlaw, a 25-year-old swingman who averaged 13-4 the last two seasons. He will push Al Thornton for minutes at small forward. Thornton has had a disappointing year and has lost playing time to Rasual Butler, of all people. Outlaw was expendable in Portland due his expiring contract and the Blazers’ logjam at the wing.

With Blake out of the picture, Portland will rely on Andre Miller and Jerryd Bayless at point guard. Both players have played pretty well this season, which prompted GM Kevin Pritchard to make this move. The Blazers are sitting in the #8 spot in the West, and Camby’s arrival should help the team’s chances of making some noise in the postseason.

Just two days away from the trade deadline, Marc Stein says that the Miami Heat are stepping up their efforts to acquire Amare Stoudemire.

The Heat emerged from the All-Star break even more determined than they were before to find a third team to help them broker an Amare deal before Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline.

Miami is “coming hard” after Stoudemire, one source said.

Although the Heat have first-round picks available to sweeten any Stoudemire deal — with the Suns hoping to come away with at least one first-rounder if they decide to trade Stoudemire this week — sources say Phoenix has no interest in taking back Jermaine O’Neal’s hefty expiring contract because, at $23 million, it requires more players to be worked into the deal than the Suns are comfortable with.

Yet one source insisted Monday night that the Suns have not ruled out taking back forward Michael Beasley as part of a Stoudemire deal.

The Suns seem to be more interested in J.J. Hickson than Beasley, which is a little odd. Beasley does have some off-court issues, but he seems to have straightened those out and he’s having a very nice sophomore campaign (16-7 on 46% shooting). His 3PT touch has mysteriously disappeared — 41% last year vs. 28% this season — and he is still a work in progress defensively, but he’s one of the best young scorers and rebounders in the league.

Ric Bucher writes that the Suns aren’t alone in their disinterest in Beasley.

“While other pieces would’ve had to be included, the trade essentially would’ve sent Beasley to Philadelphia, Iguodala to Phoenix and Stoudemire to Miami. The deal broke down, sources say, because Philadelphia wasn’t overwhelmed by the prospect of rebuilding around Beasley. This isn’t an isolated case: the Heat appear to be the team most enamored with Stoudemire, but their trading chips are Beasley and Jermaine O’Neal, aka, a big, fat expiring contract. So far, no one has been willing to bite — underscoring why the Heat tried so hard on draft night in 2008 to trade down and take the player they really wanted, O.J. Mayo.”

That last sentence underlines an interesting point. The Heat felt obligated to take Beasley with the #2 pick because he was widely considered the second-best talent in the draft. But if they really wanted Mayo and couldn’t find a trade partner, then they should have drafted the guy they really wanted.

According to Stein’s source, the Suns haven’t ruled out a Beasley-for-Stoudemire swap, so that still may end up being the best deal that Phoenix can get.

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Caron Butler is headed to Dallas, per ESPN…

The teams agreed on the principal pieces Friday: Butler, Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson to Dallas for Josh Howard and Drew Gooden. Mavericks reserves Quinton Ross and James Singleton were added to the deal Saturday and are also Washington-bound, with Dallas due to receive cash considerations in addition to the three players.

I wrote about this deal yesterday.

To me, if the Wizards are rebuilding, why trade Butler for Howard? He’s 29 — the same age as Butler — and hasn’t been the player this year as he has in years past. He has a team option for next season, so presumably they’d let him walk, because if you can’t build around Butler then you certainly can’t build around Howard.

The right way to start a rebuilding process is to get some good young talent or first round draft picks when trading away stars. Otherwise, it’s just a salary dump. This deal might be appealing to the Wizards because they can try to sell their season ticket holders on the fact that, talent-wise, the trade was pretty even. But really, they’re just treading water, if that.

From a talent stanpdoint, this looks like a great trade for the Mavs. Butler is a significant upgrade over Howard, who has struggled this season. Haywood also gives the Mavs a defensive center who can give Dallas some toughness inside now that Erick Dampier is dealing with some soreness in his knee. Butler’s salary for next season ($10.6 M) is pretty reasonable given what he brings to the table.

On the flip side, Wizards’ GM Ernie Grunfeld continues to perplex me. When he was running the Bucks, he was the mastermind behind the disastrous Ray Allen-for-Gary Payton swap, and in the last two years, he signed Gilbert Arenas to an outlandish contract (for a guy coming off of knee surgery) and now, in an effort to “rebuild,” he’s trading away a very good 29-year-old small forward for a decent 29-year-old small forward.

The trade does bring salary cap relief but that’s about it. Butler and Stevenson were due to make $14.6 million combined next season, and the Wizards are potentially going to take on the $1.1 million still owed to Quinton Ross if he exercises his player option for next year. So, by trimming a net of $13.5 million from their 2010-11 payroll, the Wizards will have about $10 million in cap space this summer, assuming they don’t exercise the team option on Howard’s contract.

In other words, this is a salary dump, plain and simple. I’d be shocked if this trade isn’t a precursor to an Antawn Jamison in the next few days. What’s the point of trading Butler if you aren’t going to move Jamison too?

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ESPN is reporting that there is new life to the Dallas/Washington trade that would be centered around Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and Josh Howard.

Talks between the teams had stalled in the past week, partly because of Washington’s insistence that the Mavericks take guard DeShawn Stevenson in any Butler deal, but the potential for acquiring two front-line players — since Butler and Haywood would immediately become key rotation players for the Mavs — has renewed Dallas’ interest.

Sources told ESPN.com that the teams’ negotiations only turned more serious Friday on a deal that would send Josh Howard, Drew Gooden and some smaller cap-friendly contracts to Washington for Butler, Haywood and Stevenson.

Well, color me confused. Earlier, we discussed the possibility of the Wizards sending Butler and Antawn Jamison to the Celtics for Ray Allen and his expiring contract, and now this rumor resurfaces.

To me, if the Wizards are rebuilding, why trade Butler for Howard? He’s 29 — the same age as Butler — and hasn’t been the player this year as he has in years past. He has a team option for next season, so presumably they’d let him walk, because if you can’t build around Butler then you certainly can’t build around Howard.

The right way to start a rebuilding process is to get some good young talent or first round draft picks when trading away stars. Otherwise, it’s just a salary dump. This deal might be appealing to the Wizards because they can try to sell their season ticket holders on the fact that, talent-wise, the trade was pretty even. But really, they’re just treading water, if that.

Like I said, color me confused.

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Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports says that the Wizards and Celtics are discussing a blockbuster deal.

In a dramatic move that would resuscitate their fading championship hopes, the Boston Celtics are discussing a deal with the Washington Wizards for forwards Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler, league sources told Yahoo! Sports on Friday.

The proposed deal would send the expiring contracts of Ray Allen, Brian Scalabrine and J.R. Giddens to the Wizards, a move that would signal the start of Washington’s rebuilding process.

The trade isn’t imminent, but talks have progressed and Celtics GM Danny Ainge has positioned his organization to make one of the boldest trade deadline moves in years. For the Celtics, ownership would have to agree to take on an additional $24 million in salary next season between Jamison and Butler. Jamison makes more than $15 million in 2011-12, but most owners are discounting those salaries because of an assumption that there will be a labor lockout and some, if not all, of that money will never be paid to the players.

For his part, Celtics GM Danny Ainge denies the rumors:

Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Friday he has not discussed trades involving the Charlotte Bobcats or Washington Wizards.

“There is no truth to either one of those,” Ainge said. “I have had conversations with a lot of teams but those have never been discussed. There are a lot of things I would like to do but I don’t feel a need to do something. I am always looking to upgrade the team, if possible.”

Have you ever heard a GM confirm a trade rumor? They always deny, deny, deny. So there’s no telling if there’s any truth to it, though Wojnarowski is a respected NBA writer.

Obviously, this trade would be a coup for the Celtics in terms of talent. Ray Allen isn’t playing horribly (16-3-3, 45% shooting), but he’s shooting a career-low 34% from long range and is 34 years old. Caron Butler (29) and Antawn Jamison (33) are both younger, and are both All-Star caliber players. Wojnarowski mentioned that the contracts are a concern (especially Jamison’s), but if the two players gelled in the Celtics’ lineup, it would push the franchise back into serious title contention.

However, it would be difficult to get the C’s five best players on the court. Paul Pierce and Caron Butler can play on the wings, but for Jamison to play PF, that means Kevin Garnett would play center. Against certain teams (say, Atlanta), this wouldn’t be a problem, but KG would get beat up down low against Shaq and Dwight Howard. Offensively, this lineup would allow the C’s to spread the floor and post up Pierce, Jamison and Butler in favorable matchups.

For Washington, this trade would confirm what we all already know — the Wizards are rebuilding. If I were running things, I’d hold onto Butler (since his contract is affordable) or at least wait for someone to offer a good young piece. The deal, as outlined, is simply a salary dump. The Wizards would be giving Jamison and Butler away for cap flexibility. With this trade, the Wizards would have approximately $20 million in cap space this summer, and that assumes Gilbert Arenas is still on the payroll.

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The Milwaukee Bucks are hovering around the #8 spot in the East and can probably make the postseason with their current roster. But according to Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal-Times, they’re eyeing Troy Murphy.

The Bucks and Pacers have bandied about several players in exchange for the 6-foot-11 Murphy, who is averaging 14 points and 9.9 rebounds this season. One of those players is Ersan Ilyasova.

The Pacers want Ilyasova, but the Bucks don’t want to give him up. Ilyasova is only 22, capable of playing both forward positions and has flashed signs of becoming a big-time scorer.

While he is averaging a modest 10.5 points and 6.3 rebounds, Ilyasova has had five 20-plus games this season, including 25 against the New York and 24 against Portland and the Los Angeles Lakers.

He also had 20-point outing against Orlando and San Antonio, two of the best teams in the NBA.

The Bucks would be wise to hold onto Ilyasova, unless they can get more of an impact player than Murphy. The Bucks aren’t the Cavs; they’re not looking for one missing piece to the championship puzzle. They’re building for the future, and Ilyasova could be part of that future. He can play either forward position, can hit the three (36%), is a pretty good defender and rebounds almost as well as Murphy (rebound rate: 17.1 to 15.3). Plus, he’s only 22, so he has room to grow.

Milwaukee should be looking to upgrade at shooting guard and small forward. Caron Butler would be a good fit, but the Bucks don’t want to make the same mistake they did with Richard Jefferson. Unlike Jefferson, Butler’s contract isn’t a cap killer. Unfortunately, the Bucks don’t have the pieces to acquire Butler unless the Wizards are willing to give him up for expiring contracts and a mid-first round pick. I’m not even sure I’d include Ilyasova in a deal for Butler as I think he (Ilyasova) could be a starter on a good playoff team in a couple of years.