Not a fan of Jamal Crawford

[CBAreject]

I've never been a fan of Jamal Crawford. His name has come up in rumors several times, and I was always glad when it didn't pan out. I think he can be a bit of a malcontent, and I know he's a chucker with a poor shooting percentage. He has played for some of the worst teams in the league the last few years, and it is my opinion that his being on those teams has contributed to their poor play.

To the question of whether he can be a PG, teams have been trying to make Crawford a PG since he came into the league as a long-armed 6'6 guard who could have been a terror in matchups with other 1's. The trouble is, he's never been able to do it...not if you consider "doing it" to mean "winning". Optimists on this board are saying "Oh man, can he ever play PG?!?" and "He sure did for the Knicks!" Well, the Knicks were terrible when Crawford was chucking for them alongside Starbury. I'm not sure which Jamal Crawford you guys were watching, but the one I saw stunk. What is it about 19 ppg that makes people ignore 39 percent from the field?

The only acceptable outcome of this trade would be if we resign Bibby (or acquire another point) and make Crawford a sixth man (even then, I think I'd rather have Flip!). We just won't be happy with him playing the point. I mean, he can be a body at the position, but he doesn't make his team any better in that role, and he very often makes them worse. I hope I'm wrong here (perhaps the pairing with JJ will work some unforseen magic), but I anticipate a lot of grumblings about Crawford 20 games into the 09-10 season.

[thefloydian]

I can't believe anyone would trade for Jamal Crawford, but this is the Hawks I guess.

[mattlanta]

I hate to sound like a douche here, but why couldn't you just post this in the other Jamal Crawford topics? We have like 5 of them...

[JTB]

WoW............................Im not going to say yall are hatin cause everybody has their own opinion but i am going to say i have to disagree with you that crawford cant play pg cause really he can. What it is, is that he's a shoot first guard but when it comes to assists him and bibby are on the same page. Both average 5 assists. People say bibby gets his team more involved. Really! all i ever see bibby do is give the ball to jj once he's up the court like every other hawk. So maybe crawford isnt a true pg but in this woody offense system he's a perfect fit cause woody dont know how to use a true pg. Then when it comes down to it the way we run our offense, uhhhhh wouldnt you rather want to have crawford in iso rather than bibby ( a pick and roll pg) who rarely can get to the basket or free throw line?.................uhhhh yeah im taking crawford

[bumpyphish1]

I pretty much agree with ya, CBA. I think he has to be a sixth man cuz he is certainly no PG (JTB).

[JTB]

I pretty much agree with ya, CBA. I think he has to be a sixth man cuz he is certainly no PG (JTB).

oh he's a pg, just not a true pg. anyways he certainly is going to be a pg on this team when bibby doesnt get resigned, unless we got some trick up our sleeves to put jj at the 3 and sign and trade marv.then put crawford at the 2 and whoever we draft at point (teague)

[Lascar78]

I feel the same way. When I heard we traded for him, I didn't even know what we gave up but I groaned. In reality, we gave up nothing since Acie would not be given a real chance with Woody anyhow. If Crawford is mostly Flip's replacement, then I'm very happy.

But since we are the hawks, I'm assuming that he will be our starting PG and Bibby is gone. Thumbs down. Since Woody essentially doesn't believe in running offensive sets but mostly just run iso's, I'm sure Woody will see him as a great PG since he can score. We better get a real young PG from somewhere. I think that is easily what we should do in the draft (Teague or Lawson maybe), but I'd be ok if they have a plan to steal a young PG in free agency.

I feel like we are getting more and more entrenched into Woody's vision of basketball, and even if we get rid of him at some point we will be left with no real PG and a roster that hasn't played team offense in years.

Hell GS was probably the best fit in the entire league for Crawford, and the fact that they wanted to just dump him there is a bad sign.

That being said, I guess I am witholding my real judgement until I see what we do in free agency, or at least in the draft. If this trade does not impact any other moves, then it is a good trade. However it is likely to have a significant impact on our other moves, which is what scares me.