The Nets and Bucks traded Rashad Vaughn for Tyler Zeller in a win-win for both teams

The Brooklyn Nets have traded center Tyler Zeller to the Milwaukee Bucks, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowksi. In exchange, Brooklyn will receive second-year swingman Rashad Vaughn and a future second-round pick, according to The Vertical’s Shams Charania.

This trade may not be a blockbuster deal like Blake Griffin to the Pistons, but it is a deal that is equally beneficial for both teams. Allow me to explain.

This is a three-pronged victory for general manager Sean Marks and a revamped Nets front office that has deliberately made moves to undo the previous regime’s shortcomings:

Moving Zeller means more playing time for rookie Jarrett Allen, who has wowed in his short stint as a starter. Allen has started each of Brooklyn’s past four games. In those starts, he is averaging 15.5 points and seven rebounds per game, primarily as a roll man off screens and cleaning up rebounds on the offensive glass.

The trade also means there is more time on the court for Jahlil Okafor, who has worked his way into better conditioning since he (and Nik Stauskas) came to Brooklyn from Philly in the Trevor Booker trade. Okafor has played in 18 games with the Nets and has shown the growing pains one would expect of a player who hadn’t touched the court in the first half of the season. But it was becoming clear he and Allen were the premier bigs in the rotation, and with three big capable men in the rotation, there weren’t enough minutes to go around.

Vaughn is an aggressive shooter who hadn’t gotten much playing time in Milwaukee behind Khris Middleton, Tony Snell, Malcolm Brogdon and the shortened Bucks rotation. He only averaged seven minutes per game through 22 appearances, but Vaughn isn’t too far removed from averaging 17 points on 38 percent shooting as a scorer at UNLV. The Nets revitalized D’Angelo Russell, gave new life to both Okafor and Stauskas, and have a head coach in Kenny Atkinson who plays to his players’ strengths.

Vaughn can shoot the ball. In Brooklyn, a team that shoots more threes than any team not named Houston, that’s something that matters.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the pick will convey to Brooklyn as long as it lands between 31 and 47. That means if Milwaukee finishes the season as a top-12 team in the NBA, the pick will go to Phoenix as part of the Eric Bledsoe trade. The Bucks, as of Feb. 5, are 29-23 and fifth in the Eastern Conference and ninth in the league, which means the pick won’t convey to Brooklyn unless Milwaukee slides down in the East.

The second-round pick is especially important for a Brooklyn team that does not own its pick in this year’s draft because it was dealt away in the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett trade years ago. Yes, that trade still has implications to this day.

Well, plain and simple, the Bucks need a big man. Thon Maker is talented and has loads of promise, but he’s only in his second year in the NBA and needs to put on some weight before he can bang with true five men. John Henson is a lanky athlete who can block shots and run the floor, but you’d like to have different looks at the center position.

Enter Zeller, who has worked himself into a semi-reliable corner three-point shooter and is another body to throw in the paint. Semi-reliable may be an understatement: he’s shooting 38.5 percent from three this season.

Zeller is a veteran big man averaging seven points, 4.6 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in under 17 minutes a game. He serves as a stop gap in addressing a key need for Milwaukee as it makes its push for the playoffs: Depth at center.

The Bucks and Nets didn’t pull off a blockbuster trade like Kyrie Irving to Boston or Griffin to Detroit, but this lower-level trade helps two teams position themselves for success. There are still three days left until the Feb. 8 NBA trade deadline. This is probably just the beginning.