Monta Ellis Trade: Who Benefits More, Golden State Warriors or Milwaukee Bucks?

After years of speculation, the Golden State Warriors have finally traded high-scoring guard Monta Ellis to the Milwaukee Bucks in a five-player deal.

In the trade, the Warriors will receive Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson, while the Bucks will get Ellis, Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown in return.

For the Bucks, Ellis is the big piece in the deal. The shooting guard is in his seventh NBA season and has proven himself to be a prolific scorer. Ellis—a former second-round draft pick—has averaged 19.6 points per game in his career. But he's been even better than that of late, averaging 23.8 points over the last three seasons.

Ellis, who entered the NBA out of high school, is still only 26 years old. On top of that, he is signed to a team-friendly contract for the next two years at $22 million overall.

For the Warriors, Bogut is the big prize. Bogut was the No. 1 overall selection of the NBA draft in 2005. He won't provide much on offense for the Warriors, considering he has averaged only 12.7 points per game in his NBA career.

But Bogut has proven to be a solid rebounder, averaging 9.3 rebounds throughout his career. At 7'0" tall, he's also a solid interior defender, averaging 1.6 blocks during his career but more than 2.0 blocks per game over the last three seasons.

Bogut is locked up for the next two seasons. He's scheduled to earn $27 million over that time.

The rest of the pieces are throw-ins, with the possible exception of Udoh, who was the Warriors' first-round draft pick last season and appears to at least be a solid rotational player.

Udoh has only averaged 4.6 points and 3.4 rebounds the past two seasons, but he missed significant time due to injury last season. This season, since he's been moved into the starting lineup, he has averaged 12.0 points and 5.5 rebounds. His field-goal percentage has improved to 52.8 percent.

On paper the trade looks fairly equal, but there are two potential issues that could ultimately swing this trade in Milwaukee's favor.

For one, Bogut has a history of injury. He's been out since January 25 with an injured ankle. He also only played in 36 games in 2008-09. If Bogut can stay healthy, he'll provide a nice big man for the Warriors. If he can't, then the Warriors essentially gave up Ellis and Udoh for nothing, considering you don't know what you're going to get from Jackson and he's on the decline phase of his career.

Secondly, part of the Warriors' motivation for dealing Ellis was that they already had a similar player in Stephen Curry. Curry is a promising player, but like Bogut he has suffered from chronic ankle injuries.

Without Ellis, the Warriors better hope that Curry can stay healthy. At this point, that doesn't look like a promising situation to be in.

A center that can score a little bit, rebounds well and defends the post is certainly a more valuable commodity than a shooting guard whose only strength is scoring. However, that's assuming that both players are going to be healthy.

If I'm looking from Golden State's perspective, that's an assumption I wouldn't be willing to make.