But this trade was an inevitable one.

With about a month left last season, a drumbeat began, calling for the Bucks to get rid of Magloire. Newspaper columnists wrote about it. Television reporters mentioned it. And sports talk radio in Milwaukee beat it to death. I mean to death. Listening to talk radio you’d think Magloire had two left feet, only one arm, was blind and suffered from sleep apnea.

This was a guy who gave you almost 10 points and 10 rebounds a game. He is 28 years old. He had some contract issues and an agent who filled his head with dreams beyond reality. But that’s what agents do. He could have been signed if the Bucks wanted to sign him. They say that Magloire wouldn’t be happy being Bogut’s backup. Well, he’s going to be Joel Pryzbilla’s backup in Portland if you can believe that.

So my issue is why did the Bucks trade him? Why does any trade get made and what role does public opinion have in the decisions of general managers? And does public opinion play any role?

Talk radio eagerly and shamelessly takes credit for things that happen. In Milwaukee they’ve taken credit for everything from the downfall of a political administration to the jailing of public scoundrels.

Sports talk radio is no different. The hosts are quick to say “I’ve been telling you so” after trades are made.

Doug Melvin, the general manager for the Brewers, has an enviable reputation around baseball. And he knows whereof he speaks.

“I don’t listen that much to the radio,” Melvin said when I talked with him this week. “First of all I don’t have that much time to listen. But there is so much that goes into a trade that the radio guys and newspaper columnists don’t know about. They just see and talk about the little tip.

“When we traded Carlos (Lee), Mark Attanasio (Brewers owner) sat in. When it was over he said it was an incredible learning experience.”

And this is the guy who owns the team. The assumption from what Melvin says is that Attanasio, who over the last 20 years or so has gotten most of his information from the media, found out that there is a whole lot more to something like a trade than he ever expected.

“Maybe early in your career, you might listen a little bit to what people are saying. I remember in my first year I traded Jose Canseco (from Texas) for Otis Nixon (from Boston). I’d walk into a restaurant and people would rip me. I was getting ripped all over. For awhile I thought I’d never make another trade. But I got over it. I’m not influenced at all by talk radio or the columnists.”

Larry Harris, the Bucks general manager, is the guy who pulled the trigger on the Magloire trade and the guy who was the subject of all that jaw-japping on talk radio.

“I’m not influenced by talk radio or the columnists,” he said when I talked with him right after my conversation with Melvin. “There are a lot of nuances to making a trade that they don’t know about. So when it’s made, you go out and talk to people and try to tell them why you made the deal.

“Apathy is a terrible thing. And when they are talking about you, everybody has the right to their opinion. But with talk radio and the columnists it’s usually about a player for player deal and there’s so much more that goes into it.

“The Magloire trade was unique because we sat down and said we were moving Andrew to five (center) and if something made sense, we’d make a deal. But that was a unique situation.”

Maybe so. But here’s what we are left with.

The Bucks got three players of questionable value.

They gave up a center with proven value that is probably going to be a backup in Portland.

Talk radio guys and columnists are happy because they think this trade was necessary.

I, on the other hand, don’t think trading a starting center that averages almost double figures in points and rebounds and was an All-Star is ever necessary. I think that the drumbeats to trade Magloire must have played some kind of a role in this trade because there aren’t any other real good reasons to have done it.