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As many of you already know by now, the second-round draft pick the Hornets received from the Clippers in yesterday's trade is for 2016. Clippers.com also reports that the Hornets gave up Rasual Butler and an undisclosed amount of cash in the deal.

Diving into some reactions to the trade from around the web:

Tom Ziller, NBA Fanhouse:

This is precisely what New Orleans general manager Jeff Bower was not going to be able to do: drop salary in the tighest NBA climate in decades. But lo! the Hornets are actually on the precipice of slipping under the luxury tax threshold...

The Chandler-Okafor swap was major, and some feel it will hurt New Orleans. But even if it's a downgrade -- and I'm not convinced it was -- it's not big enough, combined with the loss of Butler, to destroy the Hornets' chances. And that's the key here: cutting salary while maintaining your talent base is difficult. Bower has done it.

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I was a fan of Butler this season.  Enough so that I featured him strongly in bunch of my game previews and wrote two pieces entirely about him, which were two more than I wrote the previous season.  One was even one of my highly bizarre fake investigations into the occult.  Those are always fun. If you'd like to reminisce, here they are:

Rasual Butler: Phoenix in Flight
Every Phoenix Casts a Deep Shadow

So Butler was essentially our underdog story this year.  Everyone loves those, and as such, everyone loved Butler.  In a season full of injury, he was consistently available and was consistent, particularly from deep.  Watching the fan forums, the responses to this trade, as always, have run the gamut.  Most seemed accepting, but there were a lot of people who couldn't believe Butler was only worth a 2nd round pick - a couple even claimed there's no way we can win a championship now that we've traded Butler.  Wow.  That's extreme.

Anyways, like always, I decided to apply cold, hard numbers to the problem.  I started by pulling some stat excerpts from my Wing Market Value post I did at the end of the season, just to review what Butler actually produced for us on the floor.

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It's on NOLA.com and NewOrleans.com, and all over Twitter: The Hornets have traded Rasual Butler to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for "a future conditional second round draft choice."

(No word on what those conditions are just yet.)

There were rumors that the Hornets were not done dealing this summer, and I guess the loss of Rasual -- the only Hornet to play in all 82 games last season -- is the price we have to pay for not dumping huge chunks of salary in the Okafor deal.

It looks like Rasual's departure will save us a good chunk of change. From NewOrleans.com:

Butler is in the final year of his deal and scheduled to make $3.94 million. The deal provides relief to a team facing the luxury tax for next season. New Orleans was nearly 8 million over the luxury threshold ($69.92 million) before unloading a regular starter from last year's lineup.

So in essence this deal saves George Shinn about $8 million (Rasual's contract plus the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax penalty). Nothing to be sneezed at.

But how will this move affect the team's performance on-court?

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Though the Hornet's front court was paper thin - there was no question that the Hornet's got the least amount of production out of its stable of Wing Players.  A few days ago I did my valuation of the Hornet's Big Men.  Here's my comprehensive valuation of those players in an effort to figure out what sort of value they might have on the open market.  I hope you enjoy it - and aren't scared off by the length. :)

The Hornet's Wings

Rasual "Phoenix" Butler

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Yesterday, I wrote about Rasual Butler and his rise from the ashes.  However, it is nearly impossible to spend time mucking around in the soot and dust without emerging soiled.  Today, in accordance with the long tradition of Hornets247 investigations,(Peja, Paul) we will expose the dark secrets of Mr. Butler and his unlikely rise to the starting line-up of the New Orleans Hornets.

Our story begins at the end of last season as the Hornets were preparing for the playoffs.  The day after the regular season ended, the playoff roster was announced, and Rasual Butler's name was not on it.  As a result he would not even be eligible to play having been left off in favor of players such as Mike James, Ryan Bowen, and Melvin Ely.  When questioned about it soon afterwards, Rasual's response began to show the state of mind that would lead to future events.

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