The Milwaukee Bucks acquired veteran forward Michael Beasley from the Houston Rockets on Thursday and sent third-year point guard Tyler Ennis to Houston, according to a league source.
The deal had been in the works and was not a reaction to Khris Middleton's serious injury suffered on Tuesday, the source said.
The 27-year-old Beasley has averaged 13 points and 4.8 rebounds over eight seasons in the NBA. Beasley has played for Miami in two separate stints, Minnesota, Phoenix and Houston. Last season he averaged 12.8 points in just 20 games with the Rockets and shot 52.2 percent from the field.
Beasley was the second overall pick by the Heat in the 2008 NBA draft.
The 22-year-old Ennis averaged 4.5 points and 2.1 assists in 46 games with the Bucks last season, including seven starts. He was acquired by Milwaukee along with Michael Carter-Williams and Miles Plumlee at the 2015 trade deadline in the three-team deal that sent Brandon Knight to the Phoenix Suns.
Ennis might have struggled for playing time in Milwaukee this season after the Bucks acquired playmaker Matthew Dellavedova in the offseason, and with Carter-Williams and Giannis Antetokounmpo also serving as primary ball handlers.
It's clear the Bucks will miss Middleton, who had been such a durable player in his first three seasons with the team. The 6-foot-8 Middleton played in all 82 games in his first season in Milwaukee in 2013-14 and missed just six regular-season games the past two years.
Now there's a real chance his games played will be zero for his fourth season with the Bucks, after he suffered a torn left hamstring during a workout session Tuesday.
It was an unexpected and devastating blow to a young Bucks team with aspirations of returning to the playoffs in the 2016-17 season.
The Bucks announced Wednesday that Middleton would miss six months, which would put his return in mid-March, with about a month left in the season.
In a best-case scenario the Bucks would be in the playoff hunt and Middleton's return could provide a late-season boost.
But team officials might make a different decision if the Bucks are struggling and the benefits of an early return appear limited.
Right now general manager John Hammond and assistant general manager Justin Zanik are faced with another pressing question: How do the Bucks try to make up for Middleton's absence?
The team is carrying 15 guaranteed contracts and is not applying for a disabled player exception, a move that would need to be approved by a doctor and would assume Middleton could not return before the end of the season.
So it's reasonable to think that Hammond will actively pursue a trade for a wing player, someone who can replace at least some of the 3-point production Middleton provides.
Middleton ranked 10th in the NBA in 3-point percentage (40.7 percent) in 2014-15 but dipped to 27th last season (39.6 percent) as he was Milwaukee's primary perimeter threat and had nearly 100 more attempts than the previous year.
Another huge concern is replacing Middleton's defense. He often guarded the top scoring threat on the other team, whether it was LeBron James, Jimmy Butler or Paul George.
Now those duties will fall to other players, although Antetokounmpo and Carter-Williams are familiar with such challenging assignments.
If the Milwaukee Brewers had lost Ryan Braun to a long-term injury in spring training, it would have produced a chilling effect. This is what has happened to the Bucks with Middleton's injury.
The 25-year-old native of Charleston, S.C., was kidding around at Monday's team golf outing and spoke about how he had worked hard to get ready for training camp, which opens Tuesday in Madison, Wis.
"It was a good summer for me," said Middleton, who trained in South Carolina and in Santa Barbara, Calif. "It's work for me every offseason.
"I just try to improve on everything, try to become more efficient and try to become stronger."
The challenge for the Bucks to compete with Central Division foes Indiana, Detroit, Chicago and the defending league champion Cleveland Cavaliers was a big one even before this bad news.
"We took a big leap two years ago when we made the playoffs and then we took a big step back, I feel like," Middleton said Monday. "We've got to rebound this year and come back stronger and hungrier."
Now they have to do it without their quiet but confident shooting guard.
