Crawford was on 790 the zone.

[AtLaS]

Looking at his numbers, he's really not as inefficient as he's made out to be. His TS% last season was .545 which is comparable/better than other players like Kobe (.561) Joe Johnson (.534), Carmelo Anthony (.532), Vince Carter (.545), Caron Butler (.552) Hedo Turkoglu (.541), Rudy Gay (.528), Iguodala (.560).

Considering he's a great ISO player, that's pretty good company.

[Admin]

That might be the best interview I've ever heard from a professional athlete, especially from a guy who hasn't even played for his new team yet. He sounds like a guy who will be in the league for a while as a player and then perhaps as an executive someday.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Looking at his numbers, he's really not as inefficient as he's made out to be. His TS% last season was .545 which is comparable/better than other players like Kobe (.561) Joe Johnson (.534), Carmelo Anthony (.532), Vince Carter (.545), Caron Butler (.552) Hedo Turkoglu (.541), Rudy Gay (.528), Iguodala (.560).

Considering he's a great ISO player, that's pretty good company.

The difference in Jamal though ( and we'll all get to see this firsthand ), is that JC is WILDLY INCONSISTENT. He's the ultimate "hot and cold" type of player. And when he's cold, he's always been the type of player that doesn't stop shooting.

That 50 point game that everybody keeps talking about that he had, is great.

But that 50 point game was preceded by a 6 point 3 - 15 FG game IN ATLANTA.

[coachx]

That might be the best interview I've ever heard from a professional athlete, especially from a guy who hasn't even played for his new team yet. He sounds like a guy who will be in the league for a while as a player and then perhaps as an executive someday.

He shocked me with how professional he sounded.

His game does not match the way he speaks at all.

Edited July 1, 2009 by coachx

[coachx]

The difference in Jamal though ( and we'll all get to see this firsthand ), is that JC is WILDLY INCONSISTENT. He's the ultimate "hot and cold" type of player. And when he's cold, he's always been the type of player that doesn't stop shooting.

That 50 point game that everybody keeps talking about that he had, is great.

But that 50 point game was preceded by a 6 point 3 - 15 FG game IN ATLANTA.

1. Basically all those guys are wildly inconsistent with their shot. All of them had some serious cold stretches last year. (JJ, Carter, Hedo, Anthony, Gay, Iggy.)

2. To be fair, Jamall Crawford gets harped on more for being inconsistent b/c he has alwayse been on losing teams and never in the playoffs. All but one of the guys he was compared to are on winning teams with better pieces around them then what Crawford had in NY & GS. If your shooting is inconsistent but your team is winning and going to the playoffs people don't notice your cold shooting nights as much but when you lose they all notice b/c it's human nature to cast blame.

3. The Hawks backcourt trio of Flip, JJ and Bibby are about as insconsist as you can get, so this should be nothing new to Hawks fans. Heck, Ray Allen's shooting was inconsistent the last 2 years as well.

Edited July 1, 2009 by coachx

[drzachary]

1. Basically all those guys are wildly inconsistent with their shot. All of them had some serious cold stretches last year. (JJ, Carter, Hedo, Anthony, Gay, Iggy.)

2. To be fair, Jamall Crawford gets harped on more for being inconsistent b/c he has alwayse been on losing teams and never in the playoffs. All but one of the guys he was compared to are on winning teams with better pieces around them then what Crawford had in NY & GS. If your shooting is inconsistent but your team is winning and going to the playoffs people don't notice your cold shooting nights as much but when you lose they all notice b/c it's human nature to cast blame.

3. The Hawks backcourt trio of Flip, JJ and Bibby are about as insconsist as you can get, so this should be nothing new to Hawks fans. Heck, Ray Allen's shooting was inconsistent the last 2 years as well.

In concurrence with your points:

Evaluating any player on a new team takes a little bit of mental gymnastics. It's not enough to look at Jamal's career and say 'this is what he will do on the Hawks.' You have to look at the context:

- who did he play with?

- how good/well-constructed was the *team*?

- what option was he on offense?

- what style of offense was played?

- what was he asked to do?

To mention a player to whom JC is compared:

Shareef was, in my opinion, a good -- I would even say upper-tier -- player, and a reliable low post scorer. You don't see a lot of those. He was also a class act, but was asked to do way too much (be a #1 option on a very flawed team.) Now, imagine a team of Jason Kidd, Joe Johnson, Marvin, Shareef and Horford. Kidd finds Shareef for easy looks, and Jojo punishes opponents who sag off him to help defend Shareef (and he *did* command doubles.) All of the sudden, Shareef is a highly efficient player.

Who's to say that Jamal Crawford can't succeed in the same way? To the naysayers, and the predictably reflexive complainers, look at Flip's numbers and how they improved on the Hawks. Crawford may surprise everyone.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Coach, I hope I'm dead wrong about this guy. I really do. I hope Woody can reign him in, and get the most out of this guy. I just don't see it.

If Larry Brown and Don Nelson couldn't get this dude to play efficient basketball, how the hell is Woody gonna be able to do it?

If he's our starting PG, or if he's logging 30+ minutes a game, this team will drift back toward being a .500 team. If Woody can't get the kid to drive to the hole 35% of the time, we might be a 1 and done team in the playoffs.

[drzachary]

Coach, I hope I'm dead wrong about this guy. I really do. I hope Woody can reign him in, and get the most out of this guy. I just don't see it.

If Larry Brown and Don Nelson couldn't get this dude to play efficient basketball, how the hell is Woody gonna be able to do it?

If he's our starting PG, or if he's logging 30+ minutes a game, this team will drift back toward being a .500 team. If Woody can't get the kid to drive to the hole 35% of the time, we might be a 1 and done team in the playoffs.

For what it's worth, Larry Brown loved coaching Crawford.

[Sothron]

He shocked me with how professional he sounded.

His game does not match the way he speaks at all.

I don't know why people are so surprised. Crawford has one of the best reps in the league as a player. He's a true pro, he plays hard and he doesn't do the whole drama fest we see in many players. The way Nelson treated him in GS was a flat out joke and the way Crawford remained above it speaks volumes of his character. I have zero problems with him as a person its just his play on the court I have issues with.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

For what it's worth, Larry Brown loved coaching Crawford.

Yeah I know. That still doesn't mean that he could reign him in.

This kid would be a real asset if he'd not fall in love with his schizophrenic jumper. But he does. Just like another Hawk we know and love.

85% of Crawford's shots last year, were jumpshots. And when he has a NJSI of .732 ( which puts him in the highly inconsistent category ), that's not good.

[drzachary]

Yeah I know. That still doesn't mean that he could reign him in.

This kid would be a real asset if he'd not fall in love with his schizophrenic jumper. But he does. Just like another Hawk we know and love.

85% of Crawford's shots last year, were jumpshots. And when he has a NJSI of .732 ( which puts him in the highly inconsistent category ), that's not good.

Hah, nice attempt at sliding NJSI in there.. I remain unconvinced that it means anything at all useful. You can't negate the value of a 3-pt shot, eliminate the value of FT% and FTA, and expect to have something useful.

Crawford has a ZSSF of 17, while Bibby's only 14. (Zack's Scrabble Score Factor: how many points their last name is worth in Scrabble.)

[Atlantaholic]

I've been on the Crawford bandwagon since we traded for him... Sure the guy is chucker but so was Flip, and he was tremendously effective for us last year (had one of his best years)... The difference is that Crawford is considerably more talented.

[Crank]

In searching for something from his teammates or coaches that says he was selfish or a ballhog I came across this .

http://foxsports.foxnews.com/nba/story/919...eId=20090207043

OAKLAND Wednesday, during shoot-around, Warriors coach Don Nelson pulled aside point guard Jamal Crawford. The message was one Crawford had heard from everyone.

From his teammates. From his friends around the league. From his family.

"Even the dude at Jack in the Box was telling me to be more aggressive," Crawford said after Thursday's practice. "Honestly, we're a better team when I'm aggressive."

Almost lost in the Warriors' 124-112 win over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday thanks to swingman Stephen Jackson's first career triple-double and the sheer fluidity of Golden State's offensive attack was the return of Crawford. The old Crawford, who, during a seven-game stretch in January, averaged 28 points on 45.9 percent shooting with 5.7 assists.

He finished Wednesday's game with 27 points, six assists and one turnover. It's a far cry from his averages the previous five games: 10.2 points on 10.3 shots with 2.8 assists.

After seeing the two versions of Crawford, the explosive playmaker and the accommodating floor general, it's unanimous which one members of the organization want around.

"He hasn't really had a game like that since he hurt his knee," Nelson said. "I didn't know if it was lack of aggressiveness or his knee was bothering him. So I asked him to be more aggressive."

If the imploring of Crawford to be aggressive sounds familiar, that's because it is. When Crawford was acquired in a trade with the New York Knicks in November, he openly acknowledged taking a back seat to Jackson and forward Corey Maggette.

Crawford gave two reasons for his passive play of late: the return of guard Monta Ellis and the execution of the game plan.

Crawford said when Ellis arrived in late January, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure Ellis was involved in the game.

In other words, he deferred.

"I'm glad he's finally understanding he can't (defer) to Monta," Jackson said. "He has to go out there and be the guy that he is, the guy he's been his whole career. It makes it a lot easier for me because teams don't help as much. They have more than one guy to worry about. When we're so deep like that, it opens up the floor. "

The finger of blame goes to the point guard in Crawford. He said he felt obligated to carry out Nelson's ball movement philosophy. He said he wanted to set the example of sacrifice and be the one to suppress his scoring in favor of the game plan. As a result, he didn't look for his shot but to make the extra pass. He didn't take advantage of his mismatches but focused on exploiting others'.

The problem with that? They need him to be more than a facilitator.

"I appreciate that," Nelson said of Crawford's attention to the game plan. "But we need him to be what he is. He does enough of that. He does move the ball. But he also has the skills to shoot and do other things. So we want him to max out at whatever he does. The worst thing is to take a good player like that and make him one-dimensional when he's got two or three dimensions to his game."

One thing about shooting I was looking at 82games.com and checking out some of Crawfords stats . I havent seen the teams hes played on that much and I noticed like northcyde that 85% of his shots were jumpshots but then I also noticed that 39% were unassisted which very few players can put up good shooting numbers creating that many shots on their own . His efg% as a Warrior was 46%

But I also wanted to see his knicks stats because thats who he went to camp with last year as he joined the Warriors after the season started . With the knicks 82% was jumpshots but 52% were unassisted and his efg% was 54% .

The knicks numbers under Dantoni is only a small sample but we know that that system is based on ball movement and good decision making . Before his trade he was shooting 43% from two but 45% from 3 so he really is a enigma but I think he will be a pleasant surprise for us .

[exodus]

After seeing the two versions of Crawford, the explosive playmaker and the accommodating floor general, it's unanimous which one members of the organization want around.

"He hasn't really had a game like that since he hurt his knee," Nelson said. "I didn't know if it was lack of aggressiveness or his knee was bothering him. So I asked him to be more aggressive."

If the imploring of Crawford to be aggressive sounds familiar, that's because it is. When Crawford was acquired in a trade with the New York Knicks in November, he openly acknowledged taking a back seat to Jackson and forward Corey Maggette.

Crawford gave two reasons for his passive play of late: the return of guard Monta Ellis and the execution of the game plan.

Crawford said when Ellis arrived in late January, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure Ellis was involved in the game.

In other words, he deferred.

"I'm glad he's finally understanding he can't (defer) to Monta," Jackson said. "He has to go out there and be the guy that he is, the guy he's been his whole career. It makes it a lot easier for me because teams don't help as much. They have more than one guy to worry about. When we're so deep like that, it opens up the floor. "

The finger of blame goes to the point guard in Crawford. He said he felt obligated to carry out Nelson's ball movement philosophy. He said he wanted to set the example of sacrifice and be the one to suppress his scoring in favor of the game plan. As a result, he didn't look for his shot but to make the extra pass. He didn't take advantage of his mismatches but focused on exploiting others'.

The problem with that? They need him to be more than a facilitator.

"I appreciate that," Nelson said of Crawford's attention to the game plan. "But we need him to be what he is. He does enough of that. He does move the ball. But he also has the skills to shoot and do other things. So we want him to max out at whatever he does. The worst thing is to take a good player like that and make him one-dimensional when he's got two or three dimensions to his game."

This article really flies in face of the popular perception of Crawford. Nice find.

[RedDawg#8]

I have to say I told you so to alot of the replies. The day we got him I spoke about all of this and was getting flamed. The guy is willing to fit into a role, he was asked to play the way he did. And I also remember saying not to judge him by the way he plays on the court. He looks like an AI/Carmelo type of guy on the court, but he really has a Kobe, Duncan kind of personality off of it.