NBA Free Agency: 5(ish) best free agents still available

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for cap space, I can tell you I’m not taking the veteran minimum. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.”

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last ten years, that’s actually not a quote from Jamal Crawford. It’s from the movie Taken (with a couple minor tweaks). But it is wildly appropriate for Jamal Crawford. Like frighteningly appropriate.

Crawford is 38 years old and it feels like he’s been playing in the NBA since around the time Liam Neeson started acting. Like Neeson’s character in the 2008 thriller, the fact that he’s a little long in the tooth takes nothing away from the fact that he’s still an absolute killer.

Crawford played in 80 regular-season games last year and averaged in double figures for the 16th consecutive season of his 18-year career. Jamal Crawford has a very particular set of skills — he has range from anywhere in the building and he can come off the bench and light it up at any point in a game. Crawford had 21 games with 15 or more points for the Timberwolves including two in the playoffs. He shot over 90 percent from the free throw line and he’s a career 35 percent 3-point shooter.

Crawford’s salary last year was over $16 million, but the Hawks were paying almost $11 million of it and they’re on the hook for another $2.3 million out of whatever salary he agrees to for 2018-2019.