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    Jamal Crawford: The Best Available Option

    By Geoff Lepper
    48minutes.net

    Well, give Don Nelson credit for one thing: He said that benching Al Harrington wasn’t going to hurt his trade value, and he was right on the money.

    Given what the Warriors’ options were, getting Jamal Crawford from the Knicks is probably the best available option.

    In the short term, dealing Harrington for any useful player is an unquestioned win for the Warriors. Once Harrington left town, it was clear he wasn’t ever coming back. The situation had deteriorated beyond repair, as evidenced by Nelson and Harrington’s agent, Dan Fegan, trading barbs through the media.

    Getting a player of Crawford’s caliber back for a nonentity is pretty much a no-lose situation.

    In the long term, it’s a totally different matter, of course.

    The Warriors are now locked into a core of Crawford, Stephen Jackson, Corey Maggette, Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins — imagine that, a perfect small ball starting five! — beyond the summer of 2010, when a historic crop of free agents is due to hit the market. And because each of those players (unless Crawford crazily opts out after this season) is due $8.5 million or more in 2010-11, it’s highly doubtful that any of them can be traded until after the ‘10 feeding frenzy is over.

    This deal makes a whole lot of sense in the wake of the extension Jackson signed earlier this week. That contract had already pretty much knocked Golden State out of any significant change-making ability in 2010. So using the salary-cap space that remained ($7.5 million is my rough estimate, if the league can maintain its recent revenue growth) to add a quality player for basically no cost was a no-brainer.

    (As for the luxury tax in 2010-11, unless the league’s revenues well and truly crater, the Warriors should be able to get under that threshold fairly easily, even if they keep a core of Crawford, Jackson, Ellis, Biedrins, Maggette, Ronny Turiaf, Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph.)

    And hey, on the plus side, Warrior fans can go ahead and buy that $230 authentic jersey and know it won’t become outdated anytime soon.

    Other thoughts after a day of contemplation and research:

    ** Crawford gives the Warriors a couple of things they’ve been missing this season: A guard who can drive and kick, and another jump shooter that must be accounted for.

    According to NBA.com’s Hotspots, Crawford shot 40.4 percent last season from outside 15 feet; the Warriors as a whole, even with Ellis’ storied mid-range jumper and the open looks generated by Baron Davis, hit only 36.6 shots from the same range.

    This season, those numbers are way more out of whack: Crawford, flourishing as a gunner in Mike D’Antoni’s system, is hitting 47.2 percent of those shots. The Warriors are at 34.1 percent, and that number drops to 32.0 if you remove Anthony Morrow’s 19-for-31 performance.

    Given that Morrow’s emergence has been credited by other Warriors with opening up the floor for everybody, getting a guy with Crawford’s marksmanship is a huge boon.

    ** I’ll admit that when I’ve watched Knicks games over the last couple of years, it has not been with an eye on Crawford’s defense, but the things I’ve read — sample from John Hollinger: “[H]e’s an incredibly soft defender who rarely stops penetration or helps” — don’t sound too promising. I’ll be very interested to see what he brings at that end of the floor.

    ** I would think Kelenna Azubuike is going to see his minutes get slashed. In his three (partial) NBA seasons, Azubuike has been extraordinarily consistent with regard to his PER numbers, but that’s not all good news; he was at 13.4 in 2006-07, 13.5 last season and 13.6 this year. (At that rate of improvement, he’ll reach 15.0 — what’s considered “average” — in the 2022-23 season, when he’s 40 years old.)

    Azubuike has cut down on the turnovers that plagued him as a rookie, but seen his true shooting percentage plummet because of a steep drop in accuracy from beyond the arc (43.0 to 36.4 to 25.0).

    Another victim will be C.J. Watson, although I would think he has more hope of getting back into the rotation eventually. The torn ligament in his shooting elbow has totally neutralized Watson as a long-distance threat (on a per-minute basis, he’s taking one-fifth as many 3s this season as in 2007-’08); once he gets healthy, there’s no reason he can’t be a change-of-pace PG off the bench.

    The big question is whether or not Morrow can still carve out time, or if Crawford will just eat up all his minutes, with Nelson figuring that the decrease in consistency of shooting and rebounding drop-off will be made up for with better ballhandling and passing.

    I could see this kind of a setup between the 1, 2 and 3 spots until Ellis returns (I’m not even going to bother to separate them, since there’s so much ability to switch off):

    Jackson 42
    Crawford 36
    Morrow 28
    Azubuike 22
    Watson 16

    ** Has it really only been 19 months since this team finished 16-5 down the stretch and blew the doors off the No. 1-seeded Mavericks? Even by NBA standards, the amount of shrapnel left over from the dismantling of that team is pretty impressive.

    Contact: geofflepper@48minutes.net

10 Responses to “Jamal Crawford: The Best Available Option”

  1. commish November 21st, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    This seems like a no-brainer and I’m not worried about what the future salary cap will bring because we have so much time to trade other assets, specifically Maggette if need be when he eventually fails at the 4 to get rebounds and defend against much bigger and stronger PF’s in the league. That could be $40M off the books by next year and who knows what else might happen. But now we have a quality PG to build around, something we should have gotten over the summer but didn’t. And if for any reason Monta isn’t able to come back strong, we will still have some quality guards to count on. All things considered, this is like mana from heaven as far as the Commish is concerned.

  2. Joe November 21st, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Clearing space for the 2010 FA is a bad way to build a team. Celtics did it with trades. screw the 2010 FA market.

    Jamal Crawford isn’t a guy I like - don’t like his judgment or defense - but for Al he’s better than what we were getting, nothing.

    Maggette and Jax are good vets. Passion and fitness.

    Crawford’s been on Horrible teams in the NBA East. What he’s accustomed to isn’t winning so what kind of vet presence is this guy? I don’t like it.

  3. JustPuked November 21st, 2008 at 5:24 pm

    What are you talking about Joe? Clearing cap space is how the Orlando Magic landed Tim Duncan and Grant Hill back in the summer of 2000 before they won their first Championship.

  4. Jon November 21st, 2008 at 6:09 pm

    Biggest and overwhelming concern:

    Maggette at PF is the only way this works long-term, and you can bet Nellie ain’t abandoning this in the near future.

    Which means Wright and Randolph might as well not suit up.

    Morrow hasn’t lost a starting spot yet either.

    We’ll be getting some 4-5 guard lineups in huge doses.

  5. Jon November 21st, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    oh, and check it:

    Crawford played 35 minutes a game this year.

    1.5 rebounds per game.

    Yes

    1.5 rebounds

  6. Joe November 21st, 2008 at 8:04 pm

    JustPuked:
    Benny the Bull and a bunch of fans and franchise guys met Free Agent Tracy McGrady at O’Hare airport like Second City was F’N Missoula Montana try to woo a new paper mill.

    What a low point for the franchise.

    McGrady used the Bulls offer to bid up his value and sign a sweeter deal elsewhere.

    We have or dignity to keep in the Bay Area.

    No FA love fest in 2010 — we’ll trade and draft our way to the top.

  7. Joe November 21st, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    Jon:
    Maggette at PF definietly means Wirght and Randolph will suit up.

    Corey can’t play major minutes at PF for the rest of this season. At 6′6 even his awesome body will break down playing against the NBA’s bruisers. Carlos Bruiser in particular.

  8. Ray November 24th, 2008 at 8:18 am

    Its hard to judge people solely on stats .

    Crawford doesnt average a ton rebounds because he was the designated leak out guy In D’antoni’s system .If you check Raja bell never been a big rebounder either because the offense was designed for them to release and either fill the lane or run to the corner .I dont think the warriors need Crawfords rebounding as much as they need his pick and roll ability and his passing ability .the warriors have a bunch of finishers and several guys who can play above the rim the knicks had …..nate robinson.

    There is nothing wrong with Crawfords judgement .Coaches and teammates all love the guy because he will do whatever asked and hes not gonna whine about shot attempts if you are hot he will find ways to get you the rock.

    Crawford does play defense but in this league under the new offensive rules you have to have a good team defense no one guy can stop anyone and the knicks have not had guys on the frontline that were good team defenders since Kurt thomas and Nazr Mohammed left.

    I think we got a steal simply because this guy is someone who is at the top of scouting reports and teams focus on shutting down so placing him at the pg spot where he will matched up against smaller guards will put great pressure on opposing defenses .Teams simply dont double off of him and last year at pg he he averaged 20+ pts 6 assists and was very very efficient but he also ended up playing 40+ mpg and had very little scoring help outside of Randolph and sometimes Nate Robinson.

    Its a good deal for what we gave up and i think we will be very happy with the results by the end of the year

  9. Geoff Lepper November 24th, 2008 at 9:34 am

    Ray: Crawford with the Knicks this season was averaging about 55 percent of what Nash averaged, on a rebound-per-minute basis, under D’Antoni in 2007-08. Crawford is simply not a good rebounder. But you’re right that it’s somewhat of a smaller quibble.

  10. » Blog Archive » On second thought … keeping Al Harrington would have been a better move for the Warriors March 24th, 2009 at 2:26 pm

    [...] in November, when the Warriors swapped unhappy forward Al Harrington to the Knicks for Crawford, I wrote that it was the best deal Golden State could have made at that [...]

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