Bucks Exploring Luke Ridnour Trade

As the Timberwolves continue to explore ways to create enough room to bring aboard Corey Brewer, the Bucks have emerged as a potential destination for trade candidate Luke Ridnour, according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein. Stein reports that the Bucks are prepared to acquire Ridnour from the Wolves, which would allow Minnesota to sign Brewer and acquire Kevin Martin via sign-and-trade (Twitter links).

If the T-Wolves were to send Ridnour to the Bucks, Minnesota would have $47,420,858 in team salary on its books, by my estimation. That figure includes cap holds for Chase Budinger, Nikola Pekovic, Shabazz Muhammad, and Gorgui Dieng. With a cap line of $58,679,000 in play, the Wolves would have about $11.26MM in space to fit in Brewer and Martin.

$11.26MM in cap room would seem to be close to enough to sign both players outright, but Stein's indication that a sign-and-trade deal for Martin is in the works suggests that maybe Minnesota would have to clear a tiny bit more salary. According to Stein (Twitter link), the Thunder are willing to participate in a Martin sign-and-trade in order to acquire a trade exception, but perhaps they'll acquire a small-salary player like Chris Johnson from the Wolves in the proposed deal as well.

From the Bucks' perspective, it's not clear how the potential acquisition of Ridnour would affect their pursuit of Jeff Teague, or the possibility that they bring back Brandon Jennings.

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