From the Daily Herald’s Mike McGraw.

As expected, the Chicago Bulls worked quickly and completed a deal Wednesday that sends sixth-year center Tyson Chandler to the New Orleans Hornets for veteran power forward P.J. Brown and third-year shooting guard J.R. Smith in the deal.

By signing former Detroit Piston Ben Wallace, the Bulls opted to dump Chandler’s contract, which has five years and $54 million remaining.

The 6-foot-11 Brown, 37, has one year left on his contract worth $8 million and is expected to provide veteran leadership.

Blog-a-Bull’s Matt, while provide a bit of background into Chicago’s acquisition of Big Ben, used his soothsaying abilities to badmouth this deal in advance.

And I don’t think acquiring PJ Brown (and his expiring contract) would be anything more than a glorified salary dump. If you’re going to sign Ben Wallace, and trade away part of the young core like Tyson, why not get an upgrade? That doesn’t have to mean a player who is a star frontcourt talent, but at least one that can put the ball in the basket. Going further, why not package Chandler and Tyrus Thomas for a dynamic power foward, or Chandler and Ben Gordon for a top-flight 2-guard? If you’re going to spend $15m and 4 years on Ben Wallace why not give him a comparable player to run with? I think this is a far more important priority than freeing up money to sign Nocioni(really…is that so big of a concern to everyone?)

The problem with such a bold move is that it may take until the trade deadline for the big names to be available in such a deal. So, while Tyson may be coming off of his worst season and likely at his lowest value, Paxson could be thinking it’s better to get the roster situated now before the season than risking Chandler having an even more reduced role (I have said all along that he’ll have a bounce-back season) and permanently killing his trade value.