Stephen Curry has talked about the fact that he was nearly traded to the Bucks in 2012, but Andrew Bogut told Tim Kawakami this week just how close it was.
It was Milwaukee who had the choice between Curry or Monta Ellis according to the big man, and they eventually decided to go with Ellis due to fears over Curry’s ankle injuries.
“The reason why I’m sure [Curry was almost traded] is the person — I’m not going to name who they were — that oversees all the medicals had both [Curry and Ellis’] medicals on their desk,” Bogut said on “The TK Show.” “I believe it was the Bucks that said they didn’t trust Steph’s ankles, let’s go with Monta, more body of work, we know he’s going to stay healthy.
“I know for a fact because I know the person that went over those charts was doing my rehab with my ankle, so I’m 99.9 percent sure what both of those files are because she read about them.”
Ultimately, the Warriors traded Monta Ellis, Kwame Brown and Ekpe Udoh to Milwaukee for Bogut and Stephen Jackson. Bogut believes even if Ellis had been given to the Bucks, it would have improved the Warriors.
“I think [the Ellis trade] had to be made because, no disrespect to Monta, but he was very, very ball dominant,” Bogut told Kawakami. “From what I understood is there was a bit of a rivalry in that locker room between him and Steph at times.
“Not from Steph’s side, but more from Monta’s side. He felt like Steph was going to be the young guy trying to take his spot as the No. 1 option. So moving Monta, even if you got nothing back, freed up Steph so much to just be Steph, and that’s what people don’t understand.
“If you still had Monta there, or even me with Monta, I don’t think it works as well or even works at all because you’ve got two ball dominant guys. Steph isn’t going to be in his face to Monta like ‘I need my touches’, but Monta was kind of that boisterous, had been through the ups and downs of the Warriors, so that was the other interesting thing with it.”
