This is the second personnel move this off-season that has left me scratching my head and feeling vaguely dissatisfied.  The Hornets just sent out Brackins and Songaila for the 76ers Willie Green and Jason Smith.

Now, I wasn’t a fan of the Brackins pick, (clearly neither was Demps) as I made abundantly clear earlier in the off-season.  My best hope for him was he’d become a poor version of Rashard Lewis.  Songaila was a nice shooter, but he was so bad on the boards – and at everything else – it was ridiculous.  His chief attribute was his expiring contract.

I’d still take them over Jason Smith and Willie Green.  Green has been in the league for 7 years, and has been terrible.  In fact, Green had his best season ever last year, at the age of 29, and he was still terrible.(Only his assist rate and turnover were above average, and that only barely.)  Smith missed most of his first season with a major knee injury that made him slow to come back last year.  Regardless, he’s 7-0 tall, but doesn’t rebound at all and took more than half his shots from 16 feet and out.  I guess he hits 3-pointers well for a big man – but he’s still below average for the league.

At best, talent-wise, this trade is a wash.  The Hornets dumped two players they probably weren’t going to give much time to next year – for two players that probably won’t get much time.  At least I hope not.  Positionally, it was a PF/SF and a PF for a PF/C and a SG/PG.  I guess the trade fills the role of fourth guard in the rotation – in the likely case that Shakur and Strawberry can’t.

Outside of talent, nothing else was reported as included in the trade.  No picks, no cash.  The only salary cap ramification is that the Hornets can pass on Jason Smith’s option at the end of the year, and because Brackins guaranteed salary is gone, shed another million and a half of salary.

I’ll have full stat-packs on the new players tomorrow sometime.