Trades Ten Years Later - Jordan Crawford, MarShon Brooks, Joel Anthony, Toney Douglas

None of these players in isolation makes for a clickable link, but can you resist all four?

The Names:  Miami Heat receive: Toney Douglas (from GSW). Golden State Warriors receive: Jordan Crawford and MarShon Brooks (from Boston). Boston Celtics receive: Joel Anthony and conditional future Philadelphia 1st (from Miami), 2016 Miami 2nd.

The Team Context: As we had occasion to discuss last week in the context of the Courtney Lee trade, the Celtics were bad and trying to get worse. The other two teams are more interesting.

The Miami Heat were wrapping up their time as the apex predator of the basketball universe. After a shaky first year with Lebron James in South Beach, the Heat won championships in each of 2012 and 2013. The Heat were hoping to win a third straight championship in Lebron’s fourth Miami season, but a series of win-now decisions had left the team strapped for resources to further improve. Nobody on the team was young, and the free agent additions prior to the season - Chris “Birdman” Andersen, Greg Oden, Michael Beasley, Roger Mason - offered more question marks than exclamation points. Additionally, increasingly punitive luxury tax penalties made the cost of competitive rosters extraordinarily high for the Heat. Dwyane Wade was held out of back-to-back games as an injury prevention measure and point guard Mario Chalmers began missing games with tendinitis, creating a somewhat urgent sinkhole in Miami’s backcourt with limited means to patch it up. 

The Golden State Warriors were a historical laughingstock that just might have scratched their way to newfound respectability. The Warriors had finished 47-35 the prior year, their most wins since a 48-34 2007-2008 season that wasn’t enough to make the playoffs in a loaded Western Conference. On January 15, 2014, the Warriors had a .625 winning percentage, which would be their best over a full season since 1991-1992 and third best since the franchise moved to California in 1962. Steph Curry, the electric three-point shooter out of Davidson, was putting his injury concerns to rest as he made his first All-Star team. Led by coach Mark Jackson, the Warriors were hoping to put a team together that could make the organization’s first deep playoff run in 30 years. 

The Player Context: Jordan Crawford was an exciting player in college, generating buzz for a mini-camp dunk on Lebron James that was allegedly suppressed by Nike representatives (tapes of the incident were initially confiscated). Crawford transferred after his freshman year at Indiana due to NCAA scandals that look positively quaint today, then excelled at Xavier before he was drafted at the end of the first round (27th) in 2010 NBA draft. Crawford quickly garnered attention and some frustration for his shoot-first playstyle - after a rookie season trade from Atlanta to Washington, he proceeded to lead the Wizards in field goal attempts per game for the rest of the season. Crawford was flipped to the Celtics at the 2013 trade deadline for the expiring contracts of Leandro Barbosa and Jason Collins and played sparingly that season, but enjoyed greater playing time on a diminished Celtics team to start the 2013-2014 season. Crawford was even named Eastern Conference Player of the Week on December 9, 2013, an announcement which garnered seven Reddit comments, the most engaged-with being the 9-times downvoted “just goes to show HOW BAD the east is.”

MarShon Brooks was a less-flashy version of Crawford; a young backup guard taken with a late first-round pick (25th) after an illustrious college basketball career at a Catholic university with a weird mascot (though Brooks was a Providence Friar rather than a Xavier Musketeer). Originally selected by the Celtics and then traded to the Nets on his draft night, he was sent back to Boston as a young piece in the Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett blockbuster that ultimately fueled the current Celtics dynasty. Brooks got flashes of game time in Boston, but was used sparingly - on January 1, he had been sent to the D-League and recalled a week later. He got twelve minutes of showcase time in a game against Houston on January 13, going +7 in a game that his team lost by 12 as four starters (including Jordan Crawford) shot worse than 30% from the field.

The Warriors’ contribution to the trade was Toney Douglas, another late first-round pick (29th) in the 2009 NBA Draft. Douglas led Florida State to its first NCAA tournament appearance in 11 years as a senior, where his Wikipedia cruelly notes that he missed an important three late in the game and allowed the man he was defending to score the winning shot in the Seminoles’ first-round loss to the Wisconsin Badgers. Douglas played a reserve guard role as a New York Knick for his first few years in the league, but regressed in his third year and was traded to the Houston Rockets in the summer of 2012 as part of a package for Marcus Camby. Douglas then entered the “journeyman” phase of his career, playing just half a season in Houston before another trade to Sacramento. He became a free agent that summer and signed with the Warriors, who were impressed by him after a lockdown defensive performance the prior season that held Steph Curry to 1-for-7 shooting. The signing wasn’t going well - Douglas was shooting poorly, and his playing time had diminished significantly - in six appearances for the Warriors after January 1, Douglas had played around 40 cumulative minutes, with no shot attempts in his most recent two appearances of 2:31 and 5:02.

Joel Anthony had a less normal start to his basketball career. After a six inch growth spurt during his age-16 summer, Anthony was buying clothes for his new reality at a Big & Tall clothing store in his native Montreal when a fellow customer who ran a rec center invited him to play basketball. With no past basketball experience and no formal coaching, Anthony taught himself the sport from a book called “NBA Power Conditioning.” He was only marginally successful, being cut from tryouts at Dawson College (a powerhouse, currently 9-1 in Canadian Division 1). Anthony eventually made his way to the Miami Heat as an undrafted free agent in 2007 by way of Pensacola Junior College and UNLV. Known as “The Warden” for his defensive ferocity, the hardworking Anthony quickly became a cultural fit with Miami and extended in the summer of 2010 on a 5-year, $18 million contract. By the midway point, this contract was looking a bit too generous for a cap-strapped team. Anthony’s playing time began diminishing in 2013 and he was used almost exclusively as a garbage-time player in the 2013-2014 season. 

The Trade: Unlike the classic three-team trade, where two teams effectively make a trade and a third is included as some sort of asset-balancing trick, the three teams each had discrete needs that were served by this trade. The Warriors wanted to improve their bench on a suddenly contending team and did so by upgrading from Douglas to Crawford and Brooks. The Celtics wanted to continue spinning their current team into future assets and cash in on their Jordan Crawford value-building. The Heat wanted to balance out the positional composition of their bench and reduce their salary burden, and their heavy tax bill exacerbated the financial benefits of swapping Anthony’s salary for Douglas’s expiring contract. 

Before the season, reports that Boston would “love” to trade Crawford were met with laughter as a commenter pointed out that “every dollar he makes is one dollar too much.” A month prior to the trade’s consummation, there were reports that Miami was interested in acquiring Crawford. With Crawford fresh off Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors, the tone had changed and reactions were borderline incredulous as Crawford was seen as a potential foundational piece in Boston. One commenter sarcastically and presciently asked “Who are they going to trade, Joel Anthony?” By the time reports broke on the day of the trade that Crawford was aggressively being shopped, the charm had worn off enough that the top comment started with “Thank God.” Truly a 6-month valuation roller coaster. 

The Reaction: Fans of each team seemed pleased with their front office’s work at accomplishing their respective missions. Warriors fans identified their roster as among the strongest in the league, while Boston fans did the same for their treasure trove of draft assets. Miami’s benefit was primarily seen as swapping a big man for a guard while dumping Anthony’s contract, with Bill Simmons speculating that the move would allow the Heat to pick up the recently-waived Andrew Bynum. NBA writer Zach Lowe was “shocked there are BOS fans telling me this is a horrible trade. It’s Jordan Crawford. What, you wanted Harrison Barnes? Klay? Mila Kunis?”

The Results: Every player involved in this trade was off the team that acquired them before the start of the next season, so it’s fair to evaluate “results” from what happened to each team that year. Starting with the most calculable benefit, trading Anthony and using the amnesty clause to release Mike Miller resulted in the Heat reducing their expected tax bill from $33 million to under $10 million. Toney Douglas was a worthwhile bench contributor over the rest of the season in Miami and played sparingly in the playoffs, where the Heat’s three-peat bid was foiled by the San Antonio Spurs. Lebron returned to Cleveland that summer, where he recruited the cast-out Miller to join him and expressed unhappiness with Miami’s decision to release him. There’s no chance that the decisions to save money on Mike Miller and Joel Anthony ACTUALLY induced Lebron to leave Miami for Cleveland, but that narrative would fit really well for this post so I’ll run with it. 

The Warriors gave MarShon Brooks 15 minutes of gametime before trading him to the Lakers 35 days later in a deal that I’ll give you more details on in 35 days (no spoilers until then). Jordan Crawford played the rest of the season, averaging a sparse 15.7 minutes per game (10th among 2013-2014 Warriors) while taking 7.9 shots (5th among 2013-2014 Warriors). The Warriors ultimately lost a first-round series to the Los Angeles Clippers, after which coach Mark Jackson was replaced by Steve Kerr. The .625 win percentage that Golden State could be proud of in 2014 would be topped in each of the next five seasons, three of which ended with championships. 

Joel Anthony continued his light usage on a non-competitive Boston team, never playing more than 10:14 in the 15 Celtics games he played prior to April. But once any illusions of basketball respectability had faded, Anthony became a key rotation piece. He played in six of the Celtics’ eight April games, playing more than twelve minutes in four of them including a marathon 28:31 performance in the final game of the season, a sixteen point loss to the Wizards. Anthony only eclipsed that minute total one more time in his career (more on that in a second).

The purported first-round pick sent to Boston ultimately conveyed as two second-round picks, giving the Celtics a 2015 2nd-round pick (used on Jordan Mickey) and two 2016 2nd-round picks (used on Deyonta Davis and Ben Bentil). Each had an NBA career, none of which were especially significant.   

The Aftermath: Joel Anthony was traded from Boston to Detroit just before the 2014-2015 NBA season and closed out his five-year contract as a Piston. He signed another contract with Detroit that summer, then was almost shipped to Philadelphia in an announced trade that was rescinded after Donatas Motiejunas failed his physical. Detroit released Anthony after the season and he caught on with the Spurs for a final NBA season featuring 122 minutes across 19 appearances. Anthony’s last game was a forgettable 2:13 stint in a loss to the Clippers, but his penultimate game was a more exciting 102-89 victory over Dallas, where he played 29:55 in his highest minute total since 2012. With San Antonio’s stars resting, Anthony led a bizarre 8-man Spurs rotation in plus/minus with a +17 margin. Six of the Spurs who played took ten or more shots; Bryn Forbes and Jonathon Simmons(!!!) took 19, David Lee took 16, Davis Bertans took 13, and Kyle Anderson and Dewayne Dedmon each took 10. A seventh, Patty Mills, went 1 for 7. The eighth, Joel Anthony, went a crisp 2 for 2 as he grabbed nine rebounds and had two blocks for good measure. His final professional basketball play came with San Lorenzo de Almagro of the Argentinean League, following which he became a front office executive. He was appointed the first general manager of the Montreal Alliance of the Canadian Elite Basketball League, a position he continues to hold despite the Alliance’s 4-16 record in 2022 and 7-13 record in 2023. 

Anthony was the only one who stayed on the North American continent following the conclusion of the 2014 playoffs, though all would return to the NBA eventually. Toney Douglas signed with the Jiangsu Dragons and played out the CBA regular season before returning to the NBA to sign with the New Orleans Pelicans. He jumped to the Indiana Pacers that summer, then was waived by the Pacers during preseason and rejoined the Pelicans for 2015-2016. Douglas signed a few 10-day contracts with Memphis during the 2016-2017 season to close his NBA career. His final NBA game was on his 31st birthday, where he entered the game with 1:50 to go and the Grizzlies leading by 15. He missed his final NBA field goal attempt seven seconds later, committed his final NBA turnover 47 seconds after that, and the Grizzlies ultimately beat the Hawks by 12. With the NBA out of the way, Douglas could finally focus on globetrotting - his next three teams were each in Turkey before a 2019 move to Movistar Estudiantes in Spain, a 2020 move to Varese in Italy, a 2021 move to Iraklis Thessaloniki in Greece, a January 2022 move to Hapoel Eilat in Israel, and an August 2022 move to Benfica in Portugal, where he continues to play today (even though I think it’s the offseason in Portugal based on the dearth of news posts to the Benfica basketball web site since the end of September). 

Jordan Crawford’s first foray with foreign basketball was brief - he only appeared in five games for the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in 2014 before returning to the United States to play for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the D-League. In 2015, Crawford went back to the CBA to join the Tianjin Ronggang Gold Lions, where he posted perhaps his most iconic performance. On January 8, 2016, Crawford scored 72 points and snagged 16 rebounds, shooting 25-for-52 from the field. Despite the 72 point effort that suggested the CBA simply could not handle a scorer as dynamic as Crawford, the Gold Lions lost to the Sichuan Blue Whales 113-104 to bring their record to 5-23. With only 26 games played for Tianjin, the performance helped give Crawford a season average of 43.1 points per game on 31.3 field goal attempts. After another stint in the D-League, Crawford made it back to the NBA for 24 more games with the New Orleans Pelicans at the end of the 2016-2017 season, then bookended the 2017-2018 season with 5 NBA games, all of which came in October 2017 or April 2018. Crawford’s final NBA appearance was Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals, where he played 8:15 against the eventual champion Warriors. True to himself to the end, Crawford put up seven shots in his eight minutes of gametime, but he was uncharacteristically accurate against his former team, making six of them. Crawford subsequently played in China, Russia, Turkey, France, Puerto Rico, and is now a member of the Tasmania JackJumpers of the Australian Hungry Jack’s National Basketball League (you’re going to have to click the link to see what familiar brand underlies Hungry Jack’s, I’m not going to spoil this one). In the 2023-2024 season, Crawford is shooting 38.6% from the field while leading the JackJumpers (named after an ant species, seemingly unaffiliated to the restaurant) in field goal attempts per minute. He led the team in scoring (24 points on 24 shots) in the JackJumpers’ most recent game, a one point loss to the Illawarra Hawks. 

Rather than going straight to the CBA like Douglas and Crawford, MarShon Brooks took a trip to scenic Italy and played 40 games for Emporio Armani Milano (owned by Giorgio). THEN he went to China, but distinguished himself with a stability that seems to be unique in my couple of months’ research into the post-NBA careers of fringe players. Rather than bouncing from roster to roster, Brooks played heavy minutes for the Jiangsu Dragons for three consecutive seasons. After the 2017-2018 CBA season, Brooks signed with the Memphis Grizzlies on a 10-day contract to close out the 2017-2018 NBA season (which runs later), then received a multi-year extension with Memphis that summer. In December of 2018, MarShon Brooks was a key part in one of the most legendary non-trades of all time, when a three-team trade was agreed to with Washington working as an intermediary between Memphis and Phoenix. The trade was evidently communicated as “Brooks” being sent from Memphis to Phoenix, with Memphis interpreting their offer as MarShon Brooks and Phoenix interpreting it as the more-talented Dillon Brooks. The miscommunication did not come to light until the trade call with the league, by which time details of the trade had been publicly reported. Most of the pieces involved ultimately were traded (so I’ll still have the chance to revisit this in a couple of years), with MarShon being sent to Chicago to be waived a month later. Brooks immediately went back to China, where he joined the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the final three games of the 2018-2019 season. He still seems to be a starter for Guangdong nearly six years later, though his playing time has diminished in 2014 to include a six minute appearance on January 5th and an eight minute appearance on January 14th. 

Upcoming trades:

January 21, 2014:
Pelicans receive: Tyshawn Taylor, cash considerations
Nets receive: Draft rights to Edin Bavcic

Bulls receive: Tornike Shengelia
Nets receive: Marquis Teague