Admittedly, I wasn’t a big believer in Milwaukee’s decision to trade for John Salmons, but after his terrific play has ignited the Bucks’ recent run — 16-4 since the trade, with Salmons leading the teams in scoring 10 times — it doesn’t bother me that the Bulls will have enough cap space this summer to sign a max free agent. Salmons’ positive impact already outweighs whatever might happen this summer.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the aforementioned Bulls, because as a throw-in to the Salmons trade, the Bucks have the right to swap picks if Chicago picks outside of the top 10. The Bulls have won two straight, and are now sitting at 35-38, just a half game back of the Raptors for the #8 spot in the East. More importantly for the Bucks, Chicago is sitting in the #12 spot in terms of the draft, and outside of the Hornets (34-40), no one is going to slip past them.

What does this mean? Well, barring a complete meltdown by the Bulls, the Bucks will be able to swap picks, meaning that they’ll move up from their current position (#18) into the #11-#15 range. Per the mock draft at DraftExpress, that’s the difference between Baylor’s Ekpe Udoh and Marshall’s Hassan Whiteside.