Post#413 » by rockymac52 » Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:54 am
That video does say a lot.
It says that the Wizards decided they were done with Jordan Crawford, so they decided to move him. The reasons they were done with him, from what I can gather from the video, is that he was not a good locker room presence, he didn't play defense, and he wasn't a team player.
Many of us have been saying all 3 of those things for months now. I agree with them, and I think they are all valid reasons for deciding to part ways with Crawford.
However, the issue here (for most people) isn't that Crawford was traded. The issue is what he was traded for.
Although that video was brief, Grunfeld didn't manage to say anything positive about either Barbosa or Collins. It's clear that they are just bodies/expiring contracts to him. I suppose you could argue that Collins at least falls in line with the defense-first mindset of the franchise, but Grunfeld didn't say that, I'm just making the assumption there. If there's a press conference tomorrow I'm sure he'll shed more light on that.
The take-home message is that we decided Crawford did not fit into our current and future plans, and thus, he needed to be traded. I'm okay with that. However, he was traded for nothing of value, and the Wizards aren't even attempting to put their PR spin on it yet, so I'm inclined to think the Wizards agree that he was traded for nothing of value. It's fine to believe in addition by subtraction, and I honestly think Crawford might be a perfect example of that, but regardless, it does not mean he should be given away for nothing in return. It is GM 101 that if you trade something of value, you should get something of similar or greater value in return, and at the VERY LEAST, something of value in return. A 5th grader could probably tell you that. But instead, we chose to get rid of Crawford and get nothing in return. It's beyond frustrating and illogical.
Let's give Ernie the benefit of the doubt and assume that there were legitimately no better offers for Crawford out there. If that's the case, then that means that we felt so strongly about Crawford's negative impact on the team, that we were willing to give him away for free. So there better be a damn good reason that comes to public light in the near future that explains why Crawford's locker room presence was SO bad that we couldn't stand to keep him on the team, even on the end of the bench, any longer.