Crawford between a rock and a hard place

Nearly a week after his opt-out-or-else tete-a-tete with Jamal Crawford became public, Warriors coach Don Nelson finally came clean over the details of their conversation.

"I've always been very open and honest with my players and I did tell him he probably would either opt out or we would move him next year," Nelson said Wednesday, two days after refusing to go into specifics.

"That's a fact and I just don't see that that's going to work. I'm loaded in the backcourt. If I'm going to move (Stephen) Jackson into the backcourt now, I'm really overloaded. I think he's too good a player to be a 10- or 15-minute player, as a backup player."

- San Francisco Chronicle

Our Take: When the Warriors took Crawford off of the Knicks' hands back in November, the plan was for Crawford and Montana Ellis to form Golden State's backcourt duo of the future. But coach Don Nelson obviously has seen enough and has told the guard to plan on changing addresses next year.

On one hand, if you're Crawford -- who since joining Golden State is averaging 19.1 points and 4.5 assists a game -- you've gotta appreciate the honesty of Don Nelson, who admitted that in a one-on-one meeting with the player told Crawford he had no future plans for him.

But then at the same time, Crawford is put in an awkward position. Opting out is a move that gives him freedom to sign with whatever team he wants, but it could prove costly. He has two seasons and roughly $20 million remaining on his contract, but has a clause that allows him to opt out this summer. Obviously, you don't want to be on a team where the coach has no desire to keep you, but opting out will be costly. Crawford will earn $9.36 million next season and $10.08 million the next year. And in the current cost-saving mode NBA teams are in, he's likely to command a salary of only the mid-level exception of less than this year's $5.85 million.

So, what do you do if you're Crawford? Opt out and take the pay cut, or sit tight and take the risk of being traded to a losing team? It's not like Golden State is tearing it up this year, and before that he was in New York. So moving to another bottom-feeder wouldn't exactly be a drastically different situation. But it's all about winning, and since Crawford has had none of that in his eight-year career, he should take the hit in the wallet and try to find a contender in need of a gunner and not look back.

-- Mike Jones