In a very Spurs like move, the San Antonio Spurs aquired Kurt Thomas for Brent Barry, Francisco Elson and a 1st round pick in 2009. Just like they did the past years, the Spurs kept their main trio and continued to shuffle the parts around them. This time, they get an upgrade at the PF/C.

Kurt Thomas was pretty effective against Tim Duncan in last season’s playoffs and had Donaghy and Stern not screwed the Suns, Kurt Thomas might have been enough for them to go past the Spurs and win that title. If Robert Sarver was not a cheap sonofabitch, the Suns wouldn’t have needed to trade for Shaq in order to have some size in the paint. Well, they didn’t really need Shaq anyway, but you get the point. But Sarver decided to pay the Sonics to get Thomas’ expiring contract off his hands, and now the Spurs seized the opportunity and got a player that can help them in the playoffs.

The most interesting part would be if the Sonics buy out Brent Barry and after the mandatory 30 days period also known as the Gary Payton rule, he returns with the Spurs. That would be just what was supposed to happen with Stackhouse in the Mavs-Nets trade, but Stackhouse didn’t keep his piehole shut so Cuban had to spend a “little” more cash (about 11 million more) to get Kidd. Gregg Popovich vehemently criticized the Gasol trade and would have probably opposed the initial deal between the Mavs and Nets that had Stackhouse returning to Dallas. But I suspect he wouldn’t be nearly as upset if the Spurs managed to do the same thing (only much more quietly) with Barry.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 am and is filed under Trades. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.