Los Angeles Clippers: 3 Trade Scenarios For Jamal Crawford

Clippers receive: Taj Gibson, E’Twaun Moore
Bulls receive: Jamal Crawford, C.J. Wilcox

Again, two players who have a glut of players fighting for a position to solve each other’s problems. Gibson once appeared to be an athletic big man capable of playing and defending the power forward and center positions. Gibson was a favorite of head coach Tom Thibodeau, who favored defensive skills over offensive ability. Gone is Thibodeau and in his place is Fred Hoiberg. The departure of Thibodeau and arrival of Hoiberg has led most to believe that Nikola Mirotic and Doug McDermott will see an increase in minutes at the expense of Gibson.

Over the years, the Chicago Bulls have been a great place for backup scoring guards. Nate Robinson, John Lucas III, D.J Augustin, C.J Watson, and most recently Aaron Brooks have all experienced NBA success after being on the fringes of the NBA with the Bulls. Kyle Korver, Marco Bellineli, and Mike Dunleavy have also all had success as shooters on the Bulls. While the offense has changed, the success for those players has been no coincidence. The Bulls will still depend on Derrick Rose to play like a star to get them to the next level, and you may have heard that Derrick Rose isn’t the most durable guy. Jamal Crawford could play either role as the shoot-first point guard or the player who runs off of screens and spaces the floor. Crawford would thrive with the Bulls and provide excellent Derrick Rose insurance. With Joakim Noah, Pau Gasol, Nikola Mirotic, and rookie Bobby Portis, the Bulls would still have one of the better collections of big men in the NBA.

The Clippers would love to add a player of Gibson’s caliber to their roster. Although Cole Aldrich played well with the Knicks last season, it remains to be seen of that was an outlier of his career as he was on a bad team, and somebody has to score and rebound for those teams. Although Aldrich and Hawes don’t play the same way, the Clippers learned the hard way that sometimes a guy putting up numbers on a bad team doesn’t always work in a reduced role for a winner. Gibson would solve that problem. Although Gibson doesn’t have great size, he’s played extremely well as a defender and rim protector. Gibson finished eighth in allowed field goal percentage at the rim among players who played at least 20 minutes per game last season, a number that ranked better than that of noted rim protectors Jonas Valanciunas, Hassan Whiteside, Josh Smith, John Henson, Draymond Green, Tim Duncan, and Andre Drummond.

Gibson also thrived defensively while in Thibodeau’s system, a system that Doc Rivers has ran since Thibodeau joined his coaching staff with the Boston Celtics. Gibson is also a respectable free throw shooter who has shot 71.7% or higher over the past two seasons. This is important as Gibson could relieve DeAndre Jordan for stretches if Doc Rivers wanted a way out of the Hack-A-DeAndre strategy teams have employed against the Clippers.

Of all the trades on this list, this is my favorite for both teams.