Saturday, July 10, 2004

Act II: Tough love

What does J.Paxson say to J.Crawford?

"But this is one of the reasons we have restricted free agency. It gives both sides a little bit of leverage.

''We don't want Jamal to be unhappy,'' Paxson said. ''Unfortunately, this part of the business of negotiating and trying to get something done to satisfy all parties is not easy. The way we are going about this is not at all meant to be a slight to Jamal. I've said over and over, and I will continue to say, that we like Jamal a lot as a player and we value him as a player.

If talks collapse, which no one expects, Paxson knows he might have to keep a player who would rather be elsewhere.
J.Crawford has got to expect this will drag on and his agent A.Goodwin's complaining about closing the deal makes this all the more interesting.

Also, What does this mean?
Goodwin, who could not be reached for comment Friday, has said he has had nine clubs express interest in acquiring Crawford. But only the Miami Heat, Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves and Knicks have talked with Paxson about Crawford, and only the Knicks have entered into negotiations.


If Miami does trade C.Butler, L.Odem and B.Grant for S.O'Neal then Miami could possibly be interested in signing Crawford and having him play in the backcourt with D.Wade. Both are capable as SG/PG.

Miami can't give up their scoring SG and SF for Shaq and not replace one of these two with a outside scorer. Wade isn't enough. Crawford makes sense as a guy who can play both guard positions, score from the outside and punish any team that puts a defensive stopper to slow D.Wade and then collapses on Shaq when he gets the ball.

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