Boykins will be with the Bucks on Friday night in Philadelphia. (Getty Images)

The Milwaukee Bucks announced on Thursday, January 11, that they had acquired Earl Boykins, Julius Hodge and cash considerations from the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Steve Blake.

General Manager Larry Harris spoke with the media that afternoon at the team's training center.

OPENING STATEMENT BY LARRY HARRIS:
Before I comment on the trade, I do want to thank Senator Kohl. Again, it says a lot about him as our owner and what he’s committed to doing, (especilly) with some of the setbacks we’ve had and some of the things that have happened with our roster over the last week to ten days, and with the last injury to Mo Williams. We talked on the phone and spoke at length about the direction (of the team) and what we need to do. We felt we needed to show our fans, show the media, also show our players that we’re committed to winning. We’re going to do what it takes. We scoured a lot of rosters to come up with something that would help us, not only Friday (at Philadelphia) but throughout the rest of the season. If it wasn’t for his doing, we wouldn’t have been able to do this trade because we took on a considerable amount of payroll to do this trade and it goes with out saying that, once again, he’s stepped up in a huge way to put us in a position to be competitive again - starting Friday night.

We acquired Earl Boykins and Julius Hodge for Steve Blake. We feel like we got a tremendous addition in both players, but certainly when you look at what Earl has done over his career and now with Denver and the suspensions to Carmelo (Anthony) and J.R. Smith – you’re talking about a guy who in 9 of the last 11 games has scored 20 points. He brings an excitement to the game. He’s tough. He’s a solid human being, family guy, married with two kids. I think the chemistry is going to work. He’s very good friends with Ruben Patterson. Michael Redd has known him for a while. He just turned 30 years old. With the firepower and excitement that he’s going to bring, I think our fans are going to enjoy the way he plays. It should be a seamless transition of what we were able to do when we had everybody healthy. I think he’s going to bring that kind of excitement with the way we were playing prior to the rash of injuries.

Julius Hodge was the 20th pick in the 2005 Draft, which also brought us Andrew Bogut. He’s a McDonald’s (High School) All-American. He was playing a little bit for Denver with the suspensions going on. He’s an athletic, 6-7 kid that can play both the guard and forward position. Very skilled, tremendous passer…unselfish. With the situation we have he may get the opportunity to play right away.

The way the trade goes, once they get (to Philadelphia), report and (complete) a formality with some paperwork, they should both be able to play tomorrow night.

We only had Steve Blake for a short amount of time. You got a little glimpse last night of the kind of player that I think he is and will be for Denver. He’s very solid. He’s not going to beat you night in and night out, but you know exactly what you’re going to get from him. I think George (Karl) and the Nuggets are going to be excited about getting him to fit into the role that they need as more of a back-up point guard. He’ll accept that role there. He really wanted an opportunity to play more consistent minutes and with Denver he will be able to accomplish that.

We’re really excited. I know our players are; I’ve informed all of them. I think they were a little bit shocked only because trades in the middle of the season don’t happen, especially when they’re outside of the trade deadline. I challenged the team that this trade should put us in a position to look at Philadelphia, New Orleans and Charlotte – our next three games – with a chance for us to win every game. And we have to approach it like that. And we have to believe that regardless of what has happened in the past and the circumstances we’re under now, that we have to address the problem that we need to win games. We have to stay as close together as we can because the schedule becomes favorable in the middle of March and we have to be in a position to take advantage of that and not feel sorry for ourselves and really take this as a challenge. A lot of teams are going to think that we’re going to die, we’re going to quit, and I’m going to tell you that isn’t going to happen. I challenged the players to approach the game professionally. I want the effort ... I want the energy. If (you) play together and play hard and execute you can win games in the NBA. It just happens that way. You have to believe in one another and I think it can be done. I think this gives us a little boost to believe management is in all the way, coaching is in all the way, ownership is in all the way and the players are right there. That’s where I think we can get right back on track Friday night (in Philadelphia) and win.

Did the team need a boost like this? Could you tell they were down?
"I thought there was a little let down in Denver in the first half. In the second half I thought we competed well after we lost Mo. Having said that, last night we didn’t play with the kind of passion or the kind of energy that we’ve shown having won all our home games in December.

"That effort last night (against Toronto) was not acceptable. The deal was being talked about prior to that game being played, but I could tell our body language was not where it needed to be. Do I hope that this helps? Yes. I believe it will, but it still has to come internally from the players and I believe in them and they have to believe in each other. Last night we were kind of a team in disarray emotionally about where we were. I’m telling you like I told them, there are no road gimmes. Were not going to go into Philly and they are not going to say, "well, you guys are injured, we'll give you one to make you feel good." It doesn’t work that way. New Orleans and Miami have injuries; teams are going to go through this. You can’t use it as an excuse and we can be a team that says, "hey when they get back (Michael Redd, Mo Williams, & Charlie Villanueva) we'll be alright. We have good players and now is just an opportunity for these young guys to step up and accept the responsibility. They want to play; let's see what (they) can do."

Is this more of a step-and-tie type of trade or does that kind of factor into this situation? Meaning, you guys are on a four-game losing streak and there are just not enough bodies, right?
"It's interesting when you look at an NBA roster. You can only have 15 guarantied contracts. Because we had four guys out, it is not like I can go add four players to the roster. I only had one roster spot to bring in. So whether it was going to be a point guard, off-guard, small forward or a center, there was really only one player to counter all of the injuries that have occurred to this point. I wanted to make sure everybody was aware that, even though we had four guys down, I could only bring in one player. So when we really started to look at things, whether it was a free agent that was not on an NBA roster or whether it was a guy on the back end of a roster that we thought could help us, I thought the one thing that we needed was to go find a point guard we needed someone to back up Steve at that point. When we started looking at some things, we started looking at point guards that (were) available. Then, obviously, what comes into play: where teams are tax-wise, where teams are as far as depth at each one of their positions... There were two or three teams that we really focused in on. The first team that I approached and came about was Denver. We talked for a couple days and we were able to get something done. But we were considering talking about this prior to Mo’s injury."

Being shorthanded and being able to get two guys for one ... was that important?
"It was important in that, when we went into the trade, it started just off conversations about the players I liked off of their team. When they came back to us saying they would include Julius Hodge in the deal, it was ok with us, because we felt we needed a player of that magnitude in that position as well as to create depth on our roster."

Did you have a lot of options player-wise you were looking at?
"More than one and less than 29, I can say that. But we did have a number of options - there is no doubt about that. Because the way we were looking at it, we had a roster spot to fill. All the agents knew as well as the teams. They knew we had a disabled player exception. We got that with Bobby Simmons. When the NBA deems a player is out for the year, you then get an exception for 45 days (from the time the injury is diagnosed). What you get is the lesser of half of (the injured player's) salary or the mid-level exception which is $5.3 million. Bobby’s salary was obviously less than (the mid-level exception) so we were to acquire half of his salary. What you can do with that is just like having another player, you can (get) one player one time within a 45 day time frame ... and you can do a trade that will acquire that. Basically, the mechanics of this trade were: Steve Blake’s salary matched up with Julius Hodge and we had that trade exception which allowed us to put Earl Boykins into that trade exception. And that is were Senator Kohl taking on that $3 million salary was vital for us. Had Senator Kohl not agreed to that we would never have been able to do this deal."