Warriors emerge as big winners in Jordan Crawford trade

The Golden State Warriors have been looking for guard help for a while now. Very short of a backup point guard in light of Toney Douglas' continued struggles with health and production, the Warriors had resorted to using Kent Bazemore in the role at times, with Andre Iguodala serving as the primary playmaker when Stephen Curry was out. However, Bazemore, a situation athlete and defender at best, struggled badly with any ball handling or playmaking responsibility, and was unsuitable. Curry's +23.3 on/off offensive rating is a testament to the fact that there's been an enormous hole behind him.

They were said to be looking at Kirk Hinrich, but ultimately passed on him in search of a better deal. And they very much found one.

In landing Jordan Crawford, along with reserve guard MarShon Brooks, in a trade in which they only gave up Douglas, the Warriors land a quality backup guard for the cost of a not-quality backup guard. That was all they traded out.

And so, these days, is Jordan Crawford. Given the opportunity and the responsibility of starting at point guard in the absence of Rajon Rondo, Crawford has done better than expected while being the nightly focus of the opponent's backcourt defense. He is not a full-time point guard, but while this may be somewhat counter to the idea that he fills Golden State's needs for one, he is more of one than Bazemore and will be fine in a role as a secondary one. He took to the position fairly well; without much pick-and-roll game or great passing instincts, Crawford nevertheless fashioned 5.7 assists per game and the league's 15th-best assist-to-turnover ratio, doing a surprisingly effective job of tempering his usually wild self.

Crawford doesn't have nuanced understandings of time and score, of a penetrate and kick game, of in-game management, of being a floor general. You get those from many years of lead guard experience that he just doesn't have, and the absence of them has been apparent in some of the Celtics' struggles, particularly recently. But Crawford was asked to do a role that he is not suited for, which he nevertheless did well enough at, and still has his tremendous shot-making experiences. Those, in tandem with Iguodala, will suffice and shore up the big hole.

For Miami, the bottom line is all that matters in this trade. The players don't and the picks don't. The Heat had long since given up on using the incredibly limited Joel Anthony, and they have no cause to use Douglas, a wildly inconsistent player adding nothing that they do not already receive from the incumbent Mario Chalmers/Norris Cole duo. Miami sent two picks (one first and one second, with a very good chance of the first becoming two seconds) and $1 million just to change players that they didn't want. The cash means nothing to Micky Arison, the picks mean nothing to a team that stashes its bench full of Roger Mason veteran types, and neither Anthony nor Douglas adds anything of note as a player.

But the luxury-tax savings were too much to pass up. The Heat go from a $104,228,503 non-prorated payroll this season to a $94,343,394 one, additionally saving $3.8 million on Anthony's salary next year, plus another indeterminable amount in 2014-15 luxury tax. This, it seems, was enough to part with multiple second-round picks. In these specific circumstances, they are probably right.

Boston, meanwhile, continues a reload, and is proving very good at the sneaky good pickups of potentially valuable assets. With Rondo about to return from injury, Crawford's value was as high as it was getting, so the deal comes at a very deliberate time. Anthony will be a dead weight on the salary cap next season, but he will still cost $1.65 million less than Courtney Lee, now in Memphis, was destined to only a fortnight ago. Boston traded a 2016 second-round pick to move Lee's $5.45 million salary in 2014-15 and $5.675 million salary in 2015-16, then received a first-round pick and a second-round pick for replacing him with only $3.8 million total. The Celtics effectively earned two second-round picks and saved $7 million in salary for only the loss of one decent backup guard whose value was about to be seriously mitigated. That's a good fortnight.

A worrying part of the trade, however, is how little significance MarShon Brooks now seems to carry.

A onetime exciting scoring prospect, Brooks has now been a trade throw-in twice in only six months, and has barely taken the court since his productive, if freelancing rookie campaign. Given the opportunity on that very poor Nets team to essentially do as he wished, Brooks scored well, using his combination of athleticism, occasional range, good body control on the way to the basket, floaters, hesitations and craft. However, given the demands of more regimented, disciplined play ever since, Brooks has failed. Brooks can score, but only looks to. He forces shots, only occasionally plugs in defensively and is not a playmaker. He is also just not as good of a jump shooter as he thinks he is. Brooks is in danger of falling out of the league just two short years removed from being a 12.6 points-per-game scoring rookie.

Then again, this was mostly also once true of Jordan Crawford, and Jordan Crawford seemed to get the message enough to stick around. The player traded just last year for an out-for-the-season Leandro Barbosa and a hasn't-been-good-in-nine-years Jason Collins has now effectively yielded three second-round picks, so much was he able to redeem his play and his value. Brooks may not rebuild his value this much, especially as he has not as much talent. He nevertheless has enough talent to earn a chance at redemption.

Where, however, will Brooks get this opportunity in Golden State? There are scant few minutes behind the Iguodala/Thompson/Barnes wing trio anyway, and what few spot ones there are, Bazemore cleans up. 2013 first-rounder Nemanja Nedovic, a player comparable enough to Brooks to make him obsolete, could not get any minutes, so how will Brooks? Crawford only got his chance at redemption because the situation on a rebuilding Celtics team permitted it. Golden State's situation does not.

Three-team trades rarely see three winners. This one may have. But once again, MarShon Brooks may have lost.