Jamal Crawford is hurting the Minnesota Timberwolves
At first, many people believed Jamal Crawford signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves last summer was a positive, it turns out it’s not.
Jamal Crawford was supposed to be the leader off the bench for the Minnesota Timberwolves, using his 17 years of experience in the NBA to help boost one of the most futile units in the league. And although his per game averages of 10 points and 2.3 assists may look like he’s providing them with a nice lift, the truth is he’s not.
After being bought out by the Atlanta Hawks following a trade from the Los Angeles Clippers, Crawford found himself looking for a new home. That’s when he met with Tom Thibodeau and agreed to come on board thanks to a one-year, $4.3 million deal with a player option on year two at $4.5 million.
The hope was he could spark a bench which mostly consisted of unproven scoring options in Tyus Jones, Gorgui Dieng and Nemanja Bjelica, but that hasn’t happened.
According to ESPN’s real plus/minus (RPM) tool, he ranks 478th among 488 qualified players with a -4.23 RPM. While his offensive real plus/minus sits at 0.16, it’s his defense that really drags him down as it’s an awful -4.39.
That’s not surprising considering he far too often ole’s the offensive players he’s guarding, giving them a free and direct path to the rim with very little resistance.
This porous defense has also had a direct negative impact on his teammates as well.
If you look at the two-man lineups on NBA.com, Crawford only has a positive net rating with two other guys; Karl-Anthony Towns at 0.4 and Marcus Georges-Hunt at 0.3. Otherwise, he has a negative net rating with Every. Other. Single. Player. This includes a -11.6 with Andrew Wiggins, a -9.3 with Jeff Teague, a -7.3 with Taj Gibson and a -3.6 with Jimmy Butler.
As a whole, the Timberwolves are a far superior team with Crawford riding the pine, registering an 8.4 positive rating compared to a -5.3 net rating when he’s on the floor.
Unquestionably, Crawford’s propensity for dribbling the ball around the top of the perimeter in search of a highly contested pull-up mid-range jumper is a defining attribute in his ineffectiveness. While this style of play may have been popular when he first entered the league in 2000, it hasn’t remained forever young like Crawford himself.
Disgustingly, his usage percentage of 24.9, is the highest on the team- slightly above Butler at 24.8. There’s no reason a 37-year-old who’s years past his prime should have the ball in his hands more often than an offensive stud like Butler, a generational talent like Towns, or a young, budding offensive star like Wiggins. To put it bluntly, every shot Crawford takes is a baby step backward for the potential around him.
Sure, he can get hot and carry a team like he has a couple of times this season, but for the most part, his style is more harmful to the Timberwolves than it is to the opposing team.
Every time he brings the ball up the floor, uses a high pick-and-roll, and takes a shot without passing means more opportunities for the defense to rest and that’s a troublesome situation for a team who’s struggling mightily to stop the opponents from putting the ball in the bucket.
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It’s one thing to jack up the early shots as he so often does, but it’s another thing to consistently miss those shots (as he so often does). Of the 154 players who average at least eight shot attempts a game, Crawford is tied for 125th with a 43.3 percent shooting percentage. As for effective field goal percentage, he ranks 131st (50.7 percent).
The troubles begin in isolation, where Crawford get 18.9 percent of his possessions. Although he scores 0.93 points per possession (62nd percentile), his lack of ball movement hurts the Timberwolves more than it helps them. It takes possessions away from higher efficient scorers such as Butler and Towns and forces the rest of the team to watch him dance around with the basketball.
However, when compared to his transition game, isolation makes him look like a god. He runs in transition on 14 percent of his possession and averages 0.90 points per possession (17th percentile). Far too often, he settles for a contested jumper on the elbow with a hand, or three, in his face. This lack of inefficiency hurts Minnesota especially considering the lack of times they actually push the ball on the break.
Although his offensive numbers may be okay overall (like the 78th percentile he ranks in pick-and-roll points per possessions), it’s his old-school game and lack of ball-movement that hurts Minnesota the most.
Although, his spectacularly awful defense is perhaps the main reason he hurts the Timberwolves.
At 6-foot-5 and a generously listed 200 pounds, Crawford isn’t big enough to guard most wings and isn’t quick enough to guard those smaller guards. Even if he did possess the physical tools, he’s obviously not engaged on that end of the court.
He lives to play offense and he plays to live on offense. And that’s never been truer than this season.
Even though we can blame Crawford all we want, Tom Thibodeau knew what he was getting into when he signed the former Sixth Man of the Year. Crawford has never pretended to be a defensive guru or even an average defender.
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Crawford tries his best when he’s on the offensive end of the court, but he needs to begin translating that same effort to defense. If not, he will continue to haunt the Timberwolves and lead one of the worst bench units in the NBA to doom.