Jackson staring at the Suns

While it appears that the Warriors will likely wait until close to the Feb. 21 trade deadline to deal Marc Jackson, it's becoming apparent that barring a last minute bid, he'll be a Sun in the next few weeks.

Two league sources told Insider that the Suns have agreed to give up a first-round pick and John Wallace to the Warriors in return for Jackson. According to the sources, the offer would be acceptable to the Warriors if they do not receive a higher bid.

As of Wednesday night, the only minor snag in the talks was whether the first-round pick the Suns send would be lottery protected and for how long. The Suns would like the pick to be protected for the first two years. The Warriors, believing there's a good chance that the Suns won't make the playoffs this year, want to take the pick this summer.

The question now is whether the Warriors can do any better. The talk over the last few days has the Warriors also talking to the Nuggets about a three-way deal that would send Rodney Rogers (instead of Wallace) to the Nuggets and Raef LaFrentz to the Warriors.

While that is clearly an upgrade for the Warriors, a source inside the Suns said that if the Nuggets are willing to give up LaFrentz for so little, they'd prefer to deal directly with the Nuggets and land LaFrentz themselves. However, the Warriors can probably offer the Nuggets a much higher draft pick, given their record, than the Suns.

Several league sources said they believe that there are better deals out there for LaFrentz, especially if the Nuggets drop their insistence of including Nick Van Exel in any trade for Raef. The Knicks, Sixers and Pacers all have major interest in LaFrentz, but none of the teams seem to have or are unwilling to part with the players to get a deal done.

Whoa, essentially the article says that the Warriors would give up Jackson for a first round draft pick (we all know that Wallace does not do too much for a roster). I thought that they would be able to do better for a big body, especially considering that this year's draft is supposed to be thin.

Posted by john44:

I really feel bad for Wallace the poor guy gets traded 2 times a year. I think he could be a good guy off the bench he can score and he got pretty good NBA body, he just needs minutes and to play alittle better defense.

Unfortunately I don't think the guy is ever going to learn NBA defense. He was on one of the all time defensive teams, with one of the best defensive-minded head coach in Van Gundy and still couldn't learn how to do it. It's a shame, the cause the guy had some real potential to play the game, but it's all on the offensive side.