Way back in November, the Milwaukee Bucks traded for Eric Bledsoe, sending back Greg Monroe and a pair of protected draft picks. At the time, general manager Jon Horst was widely lauded for landing a talented player like Bledsoe at the price he paid; while the draft considerations are consequential, Bledsoe’s value was at an all-time low during his Phoenix tenure:
How did the Bucks and Suns come to such an arrangement? It turns out that over the course of the wheeling and dealing, Milwaukee had put together a complicated combination of pick protections to give both sides enough reason to pull the trigger.