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The New York Knicks still appear quite thin at the guard position, and with the free agent cupboard bare (sorry, J.R.) it makes sense for the front office to explore trade options.
CUE ISOLA!
The Knicks have expressed interest in acquiring Clippers guard Jamal Crawford, according to a source.
— Frank Isola (@FisolaNYDN) August 18, 2015
You may remember this gentleman, Jamal Crawford. He played a shade over four seasons for the Knicks, occasionally doing cool stuff like this:
"Jerome James starting in place of Eddy Curry." We lived through this, brothers and sisters.
Crawford is in the final year of a deal that will pay him nearly $5.7 million. If you're like me and thinking to yourself, "Who the hell could they even include in this deal under the CBA rules other than Jose Calderon," then you're in luck:
The ONLY piece the Knicks have to offer legally for Crawford is Jose Calderon https://t.co/bqdQ48aTvk
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) August 18, 2015
Isola initially wrote that the Knicks can use one of their trade exceptions to nab Crawford. I'm not sure that would be legal, and I trust Eric Pincus more, but who knows? Oh, former team executive Bobby Marks knows:
Knicks do not have a trade exception, Lost that when they went under the salary cap to sign FA this summer.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) August 18, 2015
Isola later removed that tidbit from his article, which is really the highlight of this story when you think about it.
We're going to read a fair number of "Knicks need a second scorer" takes to go along with this rumor, which is just irritating. What the Knicks need is to play basketball better...in every single facet of the game. They brought in Arron Afflalo, who averaged 18.2 points per game in 2013-14; the dude can score.
Crawford was pretty much unusable on defense even in his prime, and his shooting has slipped noticeably (39.6 FG%, 32.7 3P% in 2014-15). The real reason to do any kind of Crawford deal would be to get an expiring deal for Calderon's two-year deal. And that would be a perfectly valid reason to do the deal ... if you can fathom a reality in which the Clippers would be willing to take on more years and money.
In the end, this is all probably much ado about nothing. But it did give me a reason to watch old Knicks footage, featuring the far superior traditional MSG logo. I miss that logo.