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Saluting the Unsung Hero – Jordan Crawford

By Michael Hilperts

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Jordan Crawford. A.K.A. The Steez, The Crawfish, Crawsome, or if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, The Most Crawsome Crawfish alive. The man was just as much a walking highlight reel as he was a blooper reel. While he played on a team best left forgotten, he may have been the one piece keeping the team’s morale up.

Celtics fans had forgotten just how monotonous a rebuilding season was.

Following the Celtics 2012-2013 season – which ended in 4-2 series defeat at the hands of the Knicks – Celtics fans were crying for Danny Ainge to blow up the team. Ainge obliged, and shipped away the Celtics two biggest stars since the Bird era. The team had now fully committed to rebuilding.

With Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce gone, the Celtics had assumed an entirely new identity – one which favored the stockpiling of assets over the winning of games.

Celtics nation had taken the cynical approach to losing by actively rooting against the C’s. We justified it by fantasizing of the possibility to land the next Kevin Durant in the draft. However, there’s something fundamentally wrong when you’re rooting for ping pong balls over W’s. It’s simply unnatural. While I’m not going to sit here on my high horse and pretend I didn’t indulge in such heresy, it all feels very wrong in retrospect.

Despite my understanding of the “tanking” tactic and it’s necessity, it’s unfair for the players and the coaches to endure these “tanking” seasons.

The Celtics players didn’t signed up to lose. Newly-appointed head coach, Brad Stevens didn’t signed up to lose.

Stevens didn’t ascend from obscurity to the head coach of the Boston Celtics by losing. It just wasn’t in his playbook. He knew in order to earn the respect of his players, he needed to prove to them he belonged in the NBA.

After the Celtics had lost the first four games, Stevens was going to make any adjustment necessary to start winning.

That adjustment came in the form of Jordan Crawford.

Prior to Game 5, Stevens had been using Avery Bradley at point guard – a tactic Doc Rivers had experimented following Rajon Rondo‘s season-ending ACL tear in 2013. As it turned out, Bradley just isn’t meant to be a play maker. Despite being only 6’2″, he’s better as a shooting guard, considering his game favors cutting and creating his own shot off-the-dribble.

Stevens recognized this and decided to roll the dice on natural shooting guard, Jordan Crawford – despite his reputation as an inefficient gunner. It proved to be an instant success.

Crawford was far and away a better passer than Bradley. Crawford also had a knack at scoring baskets in bunches, a trait the Celtics were largely devoid of. Additionally, Crawford had no filter on his shooting, which proved beneficial to a Celtics team that was far too bashful (no more pump fakes, Kelly just shoot the damn ball).

Prior to his arrival in Boston, Crawford had played for both the Atlanta Hawks and the Washington Wizards. After a mere 16 games in Atlanta, Crawford was traded in his to the Washington Wizards where he’d initially start alongside John Wall in the pre-Bradley Beal teams. Despite his obvious knack at scoring, Crawford had become known as a black hole on offense, incapable of sharing the ball and lacking the ability to make his teammates better.

During the 2012-2013 season, the Celtics – in a no brainer of a move – sent Jason Collins and Leandro Barbosa to the Wizards – both of whom suffered season-ending injuries – in exchange for Jordan Crawford. While Crawford had done nothing to shed his negative reputation since he’d continue his gunner ways (and not in the endearing way, an Arsenal player would…EPL anyone?) for the Celtics in the 2012-2013 season.

But when Brad Stevens took over, Steezy’s game would show its diversity.

Crawford’s transformation provided NBA fans with the requisite insight necessary to understand why Brad Stevens was seen as such a talented head coach at Butler. He had helped Crawford understand how to make the changes to successfully transform himself from a scorer to a play maker. Crawford’s overnight transition cannot be completely attributed to Stevens, as being a point guard requires intelligence, which Crawford had had all along. This dramatically changed the league’s perception of him, as he was previously seen as a poor man’s J.R. Smith or Dion Waiters, both of whom’s intelligence isn’t one of their strongest attributes.

After going 0-4, the Jordan Crawford starting lineup injection spun the Celtics around 180 degrees, as they’d win their next four games. Crawford – who had never played the two guard in the pros – had assumed the role of a ball-dominant point guard. Like Rondo, he’d often hold the ball for 10+ seconds before connecting with a curling shooter or screened cutter – usually with a nifty pass.

However, on occasion, Crawford would regress to his ever-so-aggravating ways and hold onto the ball until just before the shot clock would expire, and take a last-second long three-pointer. Crawford was also a notoriously weak defender, largely incapable of containing stronger players. Regardless, if it wasn’t for Crawford, the Celtics would’ve been without a point guard, and thus, incapable of running an offense.

If the Celtics had descended to a 76ers’ level of terribleness, Brad Stevens may have lost the respect of the locker room. Yet, Crawford’s ability to call plays and shoot – when his teammates would rather refrain from shooting – is what kept that Celtics team somewhat afloat. The team would still reach the All-Star break well under .500, and by then, the Golden State Warriors had expressed interest.

Ainge would pull the trigger and ship Crawford west, where he’d largely ride the bench. However, in the final game of the 2013-2014 season, then-Warriors head coach Mark Jackson, would sit his starters and deploy Crawford into the starting lineup. Crawford would score 41 points that game.

Considering Crawford’s spent the last couple years in China and the D-League, he has to be the only player to fail to make an NBA roster after scoring over 40 points in his last game. See below:

For some inexplicable reason, teams are discouraged to sign the 26-year-old Crawford. I will forever remain a fan, however. What I saw from him looked an awful like Celtics pride. He never took a play off, as he’d predominantly be the loudest player on the court. He was also simply one of the funnest players to watch on the team, as his hurky-jerky movement would add a layer of excitement missing from the largely-unexciting Celtics squad.

So cheers to you, Jordan. You quite possibly helped maintain balance in the Celtics locker room, massively benefiting Brad Stevens’ reputation as an NBA coach. To this day, I’m perplexed why no teams have picked you up.

Next: Predicting the Celtics record by January 1st

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