The Milwukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors have consummated the first major trade of the deadline, with Milwaukee sending Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson to Golden State in exchange for Monta Ellis, Kwame Brown, and Ekpe Udoh.

Both the Warriors and Bucks had plenty of motivation to make a deal at the deadline, with Golden State looking to add a more established center to its roster and Milwaukee hoping to unload a crabby Stephen Jackson, but it looks like both teams got much more than they had originally hoped for.

It’s a huge win for the Bucks, who got the best overall player in the deal in Ellis, a top-ten scorer in the league.  His acquisition should squash any talk of Brandon Jennings going anywhere, as the team clearly has a backcourt they can live with moving forward.  If nothing else, this certainly injects some life into a team that’s just barely still wading in the shallow end of the Eastern Conference playoff pool, and sending out Jackson, who clearly hadn’t worked out in Wisconsin, as well as Bogut, who had his good years in Milwaukee but just never seemed able to remain healthy, is a small price to pay for a scorer as talented as Ellis.

Brown and Udoh, admittedly included in the trade to get salaries to match, are better than most give them credit for.  Brown is a credible defender at the five, and Udoh has shown some flashes of brilliance early in his career, though he still has a long way to go before he lives up to his status as a top-ten draft pick.

The Warriors, meanwhile, got the big man they wanted second-most-of-all, and Bogut jumped to the top of their wish list as soon as it became clear they weren’t getting Howard.  Obviously their desire to keep Ellis rather than trade him to Orlando was more about not helping Dwight stay with the Magic than not wanting to trade their top scorer at all.

Bogut should be able to hold down center better than any player they’ve had in Oakland for years, and after striking out with Howard, DeAndre Jordan, and Tyson Chandler over the course of the last six months, it must be nice to finally have the big man they’ve so desperately and publicly wanted for so long.

Jackson played some of his best basketball while a member of the Warriors just a few short years ago, and while he’s not the same player he once was, he’s likely to put on a much happier face at work for an organization and a city he knows loves him.  Hopefully they’ll get more out of him than the Bucks did.

In all, it’s a trade that serves obvious purposes for both teams, though Milwaukee seems to have gotten the better overall shake of it.  The Warriors seemed intent on moving Ellis, though, and the haul they returned is mostly likely the best they could’ve hoped for.

We’ll call this the first domino and eagerly anticipate the next few to fall.

Keep with HOOPSWORLD for all the latest trade deadline chatter, particularly the deadline diary, which posts ongoing rumors as they occur.