Looks like Crawford to Knicks has hit a snag. Ironically, the snag is one Moochie Norris. So, now the Knicks must choose Crawford or Dampier but they can't do both. The obvious choice - Dampier. http://www.nypost.com/sports/knicks/18061.htm This leaves Crawford hanging. Who else will pay him Mo Taylor money, and can help Chicago unload some crap contracts? Why, the Houston Rockets, that's who. We can sign-and-trade Crawford for Mo T. Then use the TE to get JYD, and maybe Duhon with the extra money. Why does Chicago do this : They get something useful for Crawford. They exit the multi-year deal for JYD, who they want to ship. Mo can put points on the board from the frontcourt, which they need. Mo can start in Chicago with Curry and Hinrich and Gorden and Deng, and they can trade Chandler. Why Houston does this : Ok, Crawford's not exactly my first, second or third choice for pg. He can score, though. He's got size. He can play the two with Tmac sliding up. The thing is, we can get him for not much more than Mo Taylor, who we don't need anyway. We can trade Crawford away to the Knicks later, if he doesn't work out. - so we have exchanged a difficult to trade Mo T for a less difficult to trade guy. JYD is a nice energy pick up and fills the backup role. ------------------------------------------- Alternate plan : IF Crawford's market value drops to the level of the TE - then we could use that to get him via sign-and-trade and then trade Mo T and Pike for AD. Chicago could then take the direct salary dump from the TE or use it to go shopping and help work whatever deal they want to make with Chandler, or as a way to help get rid of ERob. AD would be nice backup material at 4 and 5 for the remaining two years on his contract, and then upon expiration we'd have some money to spend on Yao's extension. --------------------------------------------- Bottom line - we are using the TE to get a guy that might work or might not, but who we can trade later easier than we can trade MoT now. --------------------------------------------- Otherwise, yeah, he's a score-first, turnover-prone ballhog, getting paid too much money. Great. I must say, after going through this exercise, I now have a sick feeling in my stomach. I absolutely detest stupid, selfish basketball, like Mo and Crawford have played at times in their oh-so-illustrious careers. So, now, an epiphany : Maybe we're better off with nothing. Tyronne Lue is nothing. Good luck, Gaines. At least you're not Crawford.
Crawford is very athletic, but doesn't have the BB IQ we need. But, if CHI wasn't needing to reduce salaries so much, they could get back something of considerable value for Crawford. So, maybe we can help them reduce one of their "bad" salaries, such as Williams, using our TE, so they can either keep Crawford, or get someone valuable in return. I'd prefer Chandler. They don't want to wait for him to develop. I'd love to bring him in here, and be patient, and let him grow with Yao and TMac, without having to start. I think they'd prefer Howard, whom they pursued last summer, and if that's what it takes, that's fine with me. Either Howard or Taylor. Actually, I'd like to have JYD (Junk Yard Dog - Jerome Williams) here. I think he'd provide the muscle and hustle we need at the 4. We don't need scoring from that position now. We need rebounds, intimidation and strength next to Yao. I hope we do whatever it takes to get Duhon too. I want him, before CHI realizes how valuable he is. If we got Duhon, I'd be willing to let either he or Gaines start, and let them grow at PG. One of them will turn into something special, I believe, leading us to many championships in the future. We don't need to pull everything off this summer, we need to build a championship contender, who'll stay there for many years to come. If we panic, we might end up a one-hit wonder.
Jerome Williams is also known as JYD. I personally don't like when people abbreviate players names. Sometimes when discussing trade possibilities it takes me a while to snap to who ST, AB, and KF are.
You can't teach athleticism. But some players never learn how to play. Crawford maybe one of those. Regardless, I don't want the Rockets to take the risk for the amount of money he wants.
I'm sure many of us have considered Jamal Crawford in a Rockets uniform. And I'm not "un"-sold on the idea. But he wants 9 million per year. A player making that kind of money feels he has to "earn" it when he's out there on the floor, i.e., jacking up too many shots. Who knows? Doc mentioned a trade out of nowhere. If we threw in some future first rounders, the Bulls might bite. He just doesn't seem what we'd be looking for, but that's why I'm not a basketball scout/coach/player/owner/etc.
Crawford is going to demand money that the Rockets don't have or don't want to spend. While Crawford is a very good scorer, he is more of a SG than a PG. He has terrible shot selection and requires a lot of shots, both something this team doesn't need. However, if Chicago is willing to give Crawford for MoT (which they wouldn't even consider), then we should do it just for talent wise. Crawford could get us a lot more than MoT can.
Hate Crawford. If we could put together a package to entice Chicago, then I would involve a third team to take Crawford from us. How about Weatherspoon and cash (3M) to Chicago for JYD? Weatherspoon has 2 years worth around 12M. He'll probably ask for a buyout at 6M, and we are offering them 3M in cash which is half of that. So basically what they do is pony up 3M to get rid of JYD's huge contract which still has around 30M remaining, correct? Instead, they pay 3M and get out of it. Anyone think Chicago would do this? If they buy out Weatherspoon, does he come off their cap?
