I hadn't realized this at first--forgive me if I'm just slow on the uptake--but this trade actually went down before the draft started. ESPN says:

The Bobcats had spent the past several days trying to trade both draft picks. They settled on the Richardson deal just before the draft began. ... When the Bobcats picked Wright, they were actually picking for the Warriors since the trade had already been done.

Mullin may have been banking on Yi being available at #8. Or he might have been targeting Brewer or someone else. Regardless, it's certainly not clear that Wright was his man all along, which is almost disconcerting. But would the masses be as upset about the trade if Yi HAD been available?

As a side note, I have a question about the salary cap space we just cleared up, for all you CBA nuts: doesn't this trade net us a Traded Player Exception rather than "pure" cap space? And I believe that exception cannot actually be used to sign free agents until it expires, which takes place a year from when it's created. Is this correct? Is the result, then, that we can't actually use this cap space to sign any free agents, unless it's arranged via sign-and-trade? Someone help me out here.