Jordan Crawford Warriors Trade Plus MarShon Brooks And What Will Be Lost In Toney Douglas

jordan crawford warriors trade: (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

What does Jordan Crawford bring to the Golden State Warriors? Crawford brings scoring, but in a play style that will have some of you on the edge of your seats, not kidding. He is sometimes out of control and wild with his shot selection, but no doubt I’m happy he is a Warrior now.

What does MarShon Brooks bring? Brooks along with Crawford brings scoring. Brooks is pretty good at creating his own shot. He should have a little bit of confidence after lighting it up in the D-League, or at least I hope he does.

What did the Warriors lose in Toney Douglas? Defense. The Dubs lost a good defensive player for two good scorers, which we should all be okay with. The Warriors are ranked 4th best in the NBA on their efficiency on the Defensive end, just look at this chart to check our ranks:

(Chart: Via NBA.com.)

Now let’s compare Crawford and Douglas, so here’s another chart:

(Chart: Via Basketball-Reference.)

GSWFastbreak Writes: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/warriors/2014/01/15/douglas-for-crawford-and-brooks-a-good-start/

The Warriors still don’t have a back-up floor general.  No one on the Warriors’ bench — except now Brooks — is capable of creating his own shot on a consistent basis.  They need a structured offense (or fast break) to get them open.  The back-up point guard needs to be capable of orchestrating the offense to get the most out of the other bench players.  I don’t think that Crawford will be great at running the offense, although he’ll be an improvement over Douglas and may be as good as Jack was last year at running the team.  A player like Lowry (who the Warriors reportedly passed on) or Hinrich (who has been rumored to be available) might have been a more complete, albeit more expensive, option for the bench.

 

As bad as Douglas was on offense, he was still a terrific defender.  His defense is useful during the regular season, but where it really would have been appreciated is in a playoff series against an elite point guard (Paul, Westbrook, Parker).  Douglas could have served as a “cooler” to help keep Curry (or Thompson) out of foul trouble.  The team loses a bit of defensive flexibility with Douglas’ departure, but hopefully Crawford can rise to the challenge.  Bazemore also should be able to return to what he does best — playing ball hawking defense (not trying to be Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson).

 

While this trade addresses some of the Warriors’ needs, it doesn’t address all of them.  Hopefully it’s not the last move the front office intends to make before the trade deadline.  The team should still be roughly $2M under the luxury tax.  Since they used their non-tax mid-level exception, they can go $4M over the luxury tax this season.  That means they have roughly $6M in trade exception money they can spend to add another piece to the team.  I have no expectation that they can get a major contributor for that money, but they should continue to look for ways to improve their bench at the margin.

Crawford and Brooks got a very warm welcome to #DubNation…. as expected.

Welcome to #dubnation @jcraw55 and @Marshon2 #DubNation!

— Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30) January 16, 2014

Want to welcome @jcraw55 and @Marshon2 to the team… Great things ahead, let’s get it!!! #FullSquad #GSW

— David Lee (@Dlee042) January 15, 2014

Welcome @jcraw55 and @marshon2 #GoDubs

— Andrew Bogut (@andrewbogut) January 15, 2014

I think they are going to like it here…

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