ESPN’s Chad Ford is reporting the Warriors have traded small forward Corey Maggette and the 44th pick in Thursday’s draft to the Milwaukee Bucks for two players. The Warriors will receive center Dan Gadzuric and guard Charlie Bell.

Bell averaged 6.5 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 22.7 minutes per game last season for Milwaukee. Gadzuric played only 32 games for the Bucks during the 2009-10 season and averaged 2.8 points and 2.9 rebounds in 9.8 minutes per game. The value in this trade is financial, as Gadzuric is in the final year of his contract (he’ll make about $6.8 million) and Bell will be paid about $4 million per season for the next two years. Maggette has three years and $30 million left on his contract.

This is a good trade for the Warriors. It would have been nice to get two expiring contracts for Maggette, but Bell is at least a player who can contribute in the rotation next season at a reasonable price. Maggette played well at times last season, but his lack of a true position, lack of defense, inability to play in a ball-sharing offense and his contract made him expendable. Some Warriors fans might be upset because of the players coming back in return (no stars to be found), but the ability to trade Maggette at all is a win for the Warriors.

Good analysis of the trade from Tim Kawakami here. Here’s an interesting tidbit from his blog that I honestly hadn’t thought about on my own.

What also matters is that the Warriors now have $14.1M in two expiring contracts for next year: Gadzuric’s $7.2M and Vladimir Radmanovic (assuming he opts-in on his $6.9M contract for this season, which is an automatic).

As we all know, expiring contracts make for great trade bait.

What do you think of the trade? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.