Sonics Get First Round Pick for Kurt Thomas

No wonder the Spurs front office liked Sam Presti so much. The guy is a genius. And now he's somehow convinced his old team to give up a first-round pick for...Kurt Thomas?.

Thomas goes to the Spurs, the Sonics get San Antonio's 2009 first-rounder, Brent Barry (a Sonic from 99-04) and center Francisco Elson.

The Sonics now have six first-rounders in the next three years--they'd previously picked two up from the Suns, along with Thomas, when they traded Phoenix their trade exception for this year.

The fact that a "trade exception" can be turned into three first round picks makes me think that I ought to learn what the hell it is.

Thomas was probably my favorite player on what's left of the Sonics, I'd taken a liking to him back when I lived in New York and he was on the Knicks. He was known as "Ol' Crazy Eyes" for his habit of giving a bug-eyed stare to any official who called a foul on him.

Thomas seemed to have mellowed with the Sonics. Jayda Evans of the Times wrote a good piece about Thomas' Sonics experience, and especially his mentorship of Kevin Durant, last month.

Brent Barry should help take at least a bit of the scoring load off of Kevin Durant, though he surely won't help on defense...this could be the precursor to a trade of Wally Szczerbiak, who certainly looks like he could help some points-hungry playoff-bound team.

Sam Presti would seem to be one the best young GMs in all of sports...shame that we'll likely be losing him to Oklahoma City.