The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Something about this whole Yi pick doesn’t feel right. He didn’t come to Milwaukee today for the traditional post-draft press conference and while he is not saying anything negative about being drafted by the Bucks he doesn’t sound very excited about coming, either. His agent Dan Fegan isn’t making any comments about him and Yi is headed straight to Chinese National Team practices (instead of taking a whole 12 hours to visit with the Milwaukee media).

But in the next-to-last paragraph of his (typically hilarious and spot-on) ESPN.com draft diary, Bill Simmons made a good point that I’m surprised that I didn’t pick up on first:

Also, G-State dealt Jason Richardson to Charlotte for the rights to Brandan Wright, one of those moves that has “the first step in another trade in which G-State gets Yi” written all over it.

There was a rumor before the draft which had the Bucks trading Yi for Jason Richardson (which didn’t work under the salary cap for a predraft trade, and wouldn’t make any sense for Milwaukee, anyway). Now is Brandan Wright going to wind up a Buck?

Charlotte did Golden State a huge favor by taking Richardson, because with several of their young players close to extensions (Matt Barnes is an unrestricted free agent, Mickeal Pietrus a restricted free agent, Monta Ellis will be a FA after next year and Andris Biedrins a FA the year after that) and so much money owed to Baron Davis and Richardson that the Warriors were in danger of having their salary structure spiral close to $100 million in a couple of years. Michael Jordan and Herb Kohl have done business together before — in 2003 Jordan almost bought a controlling interest in the Bucks, and the story is that TJ Ford was actually his pick before the ownership deal fell through after the draft.

Could there be a deal in place where the Bucks send Yi to Golden State for, say, Brandan Wright and the Warriors 2008 first round pick? In return for facilitating the deal by taking Richardson, do the Bucks now not pursue Gerald Wallace all that agressively?

Just wondering, but the more I think about this draft pick, the more I think that Yi will never wear the green and red.