After watching the game tonight, I believe Crawford should be our backup point guard. Nothing against Nolan Smith, but he's a rookie and I would rather see those minutes go to Elliot Williams. The backcourt of Williams and Crawford looked very sharp tonight. I would rather see Williams playing, with Smith coming in at times when the situation calls for it. Crawford came into the league as a point guard. He's more than capable of running the point. I like his veteran leadership on the second unit.
I guess I can see it. Defensively there are going to be times when they won't want him out there, but at times I think he can facilitate enough offense to compensate for his shortcomings on D.
Well, he's going to play regardless, but if we slot him at the point it frees up time for Williams. I'm really liking a second unit of: Crawford Williams Batum Smith Thomas
Johnson is looking good and he needs a few minutes. Not sure what to do between Craig Smith and Thomas. We need a wide body out there. To be honest I prefer Smith and Thomas over Camby. We need a banger out there at all times. Someone with some meat their bones.
It's probably going to be a heavy 3 man rotation of bigs with Thomas, Camby and Johnson all getting a lot of time at center mostly because Camby and Thomas are so old and they are going to need to be on a minutes watch as the games start to pile up in a hurry -- none of these guys is going to average more than 25 minutes a night (aside from injury)
I like that Thomas can run the pick and roll. He has a nice mid-range jumper, which Camby is lacking.
Crawford probably will win the backup PG job, but I thought Smith looked pretty good too. But if Crawford plays point, Elliot Williams will probably get SG minutes over Smith.
And that's the key. Smith looks good, and I think he is definitely a promising guy for the future, but right now I like Crawford at the point because he brings experience and it opens up minutes for Williams. EW looked REALLY good tonight. That might change, and maybe he was just ON, but a Crawford/Williams backcourt looks pretty dynamic right now.
He's a bit of a chucker. Takes a few low-percentage shots. I feel like he'll rarely find a better option than himself if he runs the point too much. I know the stats don't reflect this; it's just my paranoia. For my part, he'll be fine off the bench, but I'm glad he's not starting.
Yeah Crawford definitely called his own number at points where I would have preferred him to set up a higher percentage shot, but for a reserve I thought he did OK. The good thing is that Felton looks like a good enough point guard that there's a clear line of division between the starting spot and the guys backing him up, so Nate should have no reservations about putting Crawford down or moving him back to the 2 if the flow of the game turns against him while he's running the point.
With JCrossover you're always going to be straddling the line b/w confident playmaker and "WTF are you doing?!?" What won't happen, imo, is a streak of 8 possessions in a row where we don't get a shot off (other than a flaming bag shot). He may go 0-5 in that stretch, but the offense isn't going to stagnate.
