Jamal Crawford to Knicks: Why New York Will Not Land Coveted Free Agent Guard

Yesterday the rumor mill heated up with reports that the Knicks are chasing after Jamal Crawford. According to the New York Post, Knicks interim GM Glen Grumwald "was holed up in his Westchester office, working like a machine," chasing ex-Knick Jamal Crawford and Mavericks’ unheralded point guard J.J. Barea, according to NBA sources.

It is clear that having landed their star players, first Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony and most recently, coveted center Tyson Chandler, the Knicks are hard at work trying to build a team around them.

There's one problem though. They are out of cap space, exceptions and trade assets, making Grumwald's work especially hard. 

Barea has already been snatched up by the Timberwolves who offered him a four-year deal that it's unlikely the Knikcs could sniff at. 

Now they have their hopes pinned on hoping that Crawford takes a massive pay cut, and plays for the Knicks out of the goodness of his heart and a desire to win. That's unlikely since he spurned an offer for twice as much from the more complete Chicago Bulls who are probably closer to a championship. 

The most the Knicks can offer is the new "room exception," the $2.5 million allotted to teams that had cap space entering the offseason. 

There were some reports yesterday that the Knicks might be trying to work a sign and trade, but they don't have a lot in the way of assets to offer either. They gave most of those away to get Anthony. 

It's inexplicable to me as to why the Knicks would be looking for a shooting guard anyway. I say this for two reasons. First, Landry Fields is a defensive-minded player, and they need that. Replacing him with Crawford is not optimal in the first place. 

More pressing, though, is that when they cut Billups to make room for Chandler, they created a huge vacuum at the most important position in a Mike D'Antoni offense, the point guard. The Knicks are now stuck with Toney Douglas who has a lot of potential, but is more of a shooting guard than a point guard. 

It's hard to figure why they are pressing to find another shooting guard when what they need is a point guard. Otherwise what they have is race car with no one to drive it.