The counterpoint to this is that the sum is always going to be bigger than that of its separate parts. The Warriors are hands down a BETTER TEAM without Crawford than with him. He takes up a spot on the floor in the backcourt that, when paired up with Monta as the future of our team, would never be complimentary or even beneficial. They could score… but they couldn’t win games in the long run. It was sad to see Crawford go—nobody questions his personality or his ability with the ball, but it was the rest of his game; the defense, the passing (average with some small flash at best), that made him expendable, replaceable, and all in all a good move for the franchise to let him go.

Now… was the trade a good move for the team? No… Law and Speedy was zero value for the team in return. But it was an out… and the value is in which players can play when Crawford is not there that is the benefit. Looks like the team is going to live and die with the existing talent.. which is an adventure to say the least. But it is tough to argue, even with the arguments you have made here, that we are a BETTER TEAM with Crawford not only on the floor, but as a shoot-first streaky 6th man for what he would cost the team in salary.

But don’t tell the man that he should opt out or they will trade him with more than 20 games left to go in the season.

Opting out was for Crawford’s benefit, so that he can control his future and try to go to a winning team. Otherwise, he’d be tied down to whatever team the Warriors chose to trade him to. Crawford chose to take that chance (and keep his contract money) and luckily for him, the Warriors traded him to a team that has a chance to make the playoffs.

The worst part is, when Crawford comes into town in that red and black Hawks uniform next year, he will probably undeservedly get booed.

I disagree. Crawford’s not the player we’re looking for, but he did everything asked of him and handled himself professionally. I have not heard any malice towards him from any of the fans around here. Why would fans boo him?

Say what you want about Crawford’s inability to play defense and lack of rebounding for a guard, but I still feel as though we could have used him. It’s not everyday where you can find someone who can score 50 points on any given night. He was asked to play point guard which isn’t a natural position for him, and he did everything that was asked of him.

He did everything that was asked of him? So no one ever asked him to play defense or rebound? Wow. What an oversight. If I’d have known, I’d have sent him a letter. I guess I wrongly assumed that at some point someone would have mentioned that those are requirements of the game of basketball.

We did use him and the results weren’t particularly pretty. On any given night, he might score 50, but those given nights don’t happen often enough to justify the far more frequent nights where he went 4 for 18 and did nothing to slow down the opposition.

Crawford is the poster child for tunnel vision player analysis that focuses on point totals above all else. He only looks like a worthwhile player when you exclude more than half the game from your analysis. It is not an accident that the teams he plays for have never seen the playoffs while he’s been on the roster.

" It’s not everyday where you can find someone who can score 50 points on any given night."

How does this make someone a good player? Sure, he could score 50, but what about all the nights he doesn’t? Is winning the 3 games a year he scores 50 worth all the losses you get for having a player who’s only value is scoring…yet he doesn’t even do that well. Over Crawford’s career, if you replaced him with an average NBA guard, and that average guard took as many shots as Crawford, the teams Crawford played for would have actually scored more points.

“In my opinion, Crawford did fine at pg. not great, but better than anyone else can do. "

Maybe he can break guys down off the dribble better than our other options, I guess that’s something he has going for him, but what makes you think he’s a more effective PG than any of our other options? He doesn’t do anything to get others involved in the offense (see assists per 36 minutes generally in the 4.2-4.5 range), he doesn’t spread the court, he can’t defend 1’s or 2’s or anybody, he’s a poor rebounder for a PG despite being 6’5-6’6….what exactly about that translates into “better than anyone else can do”?

Simply put, trading Crawford for expirings was a great move. The fact that we got his contract off our books while getting something worthwhile in return (either trade value or additional financial flexibility starting next year) is very good. Combine that with the fact that Law/Claxton won’t play at all for us, and the fact that we’re a better team simply by not having Crawford play any minutes, and I just don’t see where any bitterness comes from.

As for the way we treated Crawford, what do you expect? We wanted him to opt out, and the only chance we had (since it makes no sense for Crawford to opt out given his contract) was to make him miserable enough to want to leave. Not the most professional way of handling things, sure, but certainly in the best basketball interests of the Warriors organization.

Jamal Crawford a “solid pointguard”? Wow. I’m still shocked when I read posts arguing the merits of Jamal Crawford’s game.

“He did everything that was asked of him” when it came to playing pointguard. Yeh, except for those handful of things we like to see from good pointguards: setting up your teammates for easy baskets, running the offense, making sure the team takes quality shots, playing tough defense.

Then you go on to make the implication that Crawford really wasn’t given a “shot” to show everyone what he was really capable of. If you had watched the majority of games last year (which judging by your evaluation of Crawford, you did not) you would have seen that Crawford played a ton of minutes throughout the year (almost every game he was in he played 40+ minutes). His playing time only tailed off when Don Nelson came to the realization that Crawford was a detriment to the team and that he wouldn’t be rejoining the Warriors next year.

In summary, Crawford is absolutely awful. Good riddance.