The Los Angeles Clippers have long known they have held one very important chip to trade in to improve their roster construction in Eric Bledsoe. But with the Clippers uncertain of whether Chris Paul would re-sign a $107 million contract, Bledsoe scenarios could not move beyond the brainstorming stage.

Bledsoe was long connected to a trade involving Arron Afflalo and also briefly linked to the Doc Rivers-Kevin Garnett conversations.

The Clippers found their deal on Tuesday by dealing Bledsoe and Caron Butler to the Phoenix Suns while acquiring J.J. Redick on a four-year, $27 million sign-and-trade and Jared Dudley. The Milwaukee Bucks acquired a second round pick from both teams for facilitating the sign-and-trade.

Redick and Dudley gives the Clippers two outstanding complementary pieces on the wing that are significantly younger than the likes of Grant Hill, Chauncey Billups and Matt Barnes, while also being able to play without the ball in their hand unlike Jamal Crawford.

Redick has somewhat quietly become one of the NBA’s most coveted pieces as an excellent spot-up shooter. Redick is a liability on defense due to his physical profile, but his effort is usually there. The ability to create space for Paul to operate is a huge net positive and he will certainly become a 40+ percent three-point shooter again this season with the open looks that will come to him.

Dudley played most of his minutes last season as small forward where he had a net positive PER against his counterpart. Dudley is not a lockdown defender, but he has been one of the NBA’s best players in terms of outplaying expectations. He can be a nuisance and typically plays intelligently. On offense, Dudley is a career 40.5 percent shooter from three and has a reliable mid-range jumper.

Redick and Dudley are the type of glue guys that we saw make such huge impacts in the playoffs by players like Danny Green and Ray Allen. With these two acquisitions, Paul and Blake Griffin have been given a supporting cast that makes sense from the perspective of roster cohesion and is beginning to match any on talent.

Grade for Clippers: A

In converting Dudley, a piece that will age out of his prime by the time the Suns are ready to compete, and a second round pick into Bledsoe, there is no risk. The Suns will pick up the tab on the $8 million remaining on Butler’s contract, but it expires one season before Dudley’s to create additional 2014 cap space.

Bledsoe will become a restricted free agent next summer and his cap hold will be smaller than the first season of his deal, so anyone they pursue will come before a resolution to his situation unless he signs an offer sheet with a rival team.

The Suns get one full season to evaluate Bledsoe in starter minutes to see if he can put up that 17.5 PER of 12-13 in 35 minutes per night instead of just 20. Bledsoe is extraordinarily talented, but often baffling. He simply needs more NBA reps at this point in his career since he has played fewer than 4,000 minutes in just under 200 games.

Bledsoe had a True Shooting Percentage of .513 while dropping his turnover rate and increasing his usage last season.

The Suns have some duplication on their depth chart in the backcourt with Bledsoe, Goran Dragic, Kendall Marshall and Archie Goodwin. Dragic and Bledsoe could conceivably play together and not have issues on defense on most nights, but it is far from ideal in the long-term. Marshall had a very difficult rookie season in which he hardly looked like a lottery pick, but a coaching change will give him a fresh start.

Grade for Suns: A

The Bucks gave up a promising asset in Tobias Harris for a brief rental that only helped the team become the sacrificial lamb in a four-game sweep to the Miami Heat in the first round. Redick actually didn’t even help all that much on that front since he was inexplicably out of the rotation. With both Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis becoming free agents and using up the majority of available guard minutes, adding another pending free agent to the mix made this offseason even more unpredictable John Hammond.

But this trade needs to be judged independently from the acquisition of Redick and acquiring two second picks is not a horrible haul considering how rare sign-and-trades are becoming under the NBA’s most restrictive CBA.

The Bucks will also receive a trade exception.

Grade for Bucks: B