Bucks’ Khris Middleton injures hamstring, out 6 months

Houston has traded Beasley, the former #2 overall selection, to the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for Guard Tyler Ennis, as reported by Adrian Wojnarowski.

He could miss a significant portion of the season and a final timetable will be set after surgery, sources said.

Middleton is expected to be sidelined for approximately six months, with surgery planned in the next week. He improved his average in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, field goal percentage and minutes in each season that he has played in the National Basketball Association. In 79 career National Basketball Association games (eight starts), Ennis has averaged 4.1 points, 2.1 assists and 1.4 rebounds. He also doled out a personal-best 4.2 assists per contest a season ago. After washing out in his second go-round with the Heat in 2015, Beasley resurrected his career in China last season, averaging 31.9 points, 13.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.0 steals for the Shandong Golden Stars.

Now they have to do it without their quiet but confident shooting guard.

ATLANTA HAWKS: With the re-signing of Kent Bazemore and the drafting of DeAndre Bembry and Taurean Prince, wing depth is not an issue in Atlanta.

On Wednesday (NZT) the Milwaukee Bucks player was put in another driver’s seat as he spoke to reporters about the four-year, US$100 million (NZD$136m) contract he signed a few minutes earlier.

Is the defense as big of a deal as we make it out to be?

Antetokounmpo got the chance to play on the Bucks’ league-worst 15-67 team as a rookie. Antetokounmpo and Parker are likely the only untouchables.

Beasley did most of his damage in Houston at power forward. They also own all seven of their first round selections (2017-23).

One name that comes up is Rudy Gay, who has asked the Sacramento Kings to trade him.

The question now, for the Bucks, is where do they go from here?

“I think it was after the All-Star break and we were playing in Atlanta, and coach (Kidd) made the decision for me to be the point guard,” Antetokounmpo said. The first option is to move Carter-Williams or Dellavedova over from one to the two.

As for the Rockets, in Ennis they’re getting a former Syracuse point guard still getting his footing in the National Basketball Association. They selected Rashad Vaughn in the first round of the 2015 National Basketball Association draft and he struggled as a rookie last season.

Vaughn accounted for 3.1 points per game, shooting just 30.5 percent from the field and 29.3 percent from three-point range.