Jordan Crawford - MIP

[sunnyd656]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

The only that comes to mind from last night, is when he chucked up a 30 foot 3 with like 10 seconds left on the shot clock. The announcer literally went "ya, you can't do that" lol. But that is his mentality, so I somewhat understand when he does hilarious things like that.

When Rondo comes back, I expect him and Steez to split minutes almost 50/50 for a while, until Rondo gets the groove back. So I hope it doesn't mess with his head. But I agree, I think he will slide to the 2, and AB be the 6th man, with him goin in for Craw then Craw going back in for Rondo.

[BballTim]

I think Crawford could relegate AB to the bench if RR returns to form.  He can shoot better and has done a lot of things (more than AB) to help us win this year.

  It's an interesting mix. Much of what Crawford's done that Bradley doesn't is things that Rondo will do and not Crawford when Rondo's back. You also have to consider Lee,  who's quietly playing well. Do they give him less minutes, or more (to showcase him)?

[ssspence]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

[Tr1boy]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

The only that comes to mind from last night, is when he chucked up a 30 foot 3 with like 10 seconds left on the shot clock. The announcer literally went "ya, you can't do that" lol. But that is his mentality, so I somewhat understand when he does hilarious things like that.

When Rondo comes back, I expect him and Steez to split minutes almost 50/50 for a while, until Rondo gets the groove back. So I hope it doesn't mess with his head. But I agree, I think he will slide to the 2, and AB be the 6th man, with him goin in for Craw then Craw going back in for Rondo.

He has rarely missed chucking up difficult shots lately. Or he doesnt take them. He def has matured the past 3-4 games.

Stevens deserves alot cr imo

[Snakehead]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

The only that comes to mind from last night, is when he chucked up a 30 foot 3 with like 10 seconds left on the shot clock. The announcer literally went "ya, you can't do that" lol. But that is his mentality, so I somewhat understand when he does hilarious things like that.

When Rondo comes back, I expect him and Steez to split minutes almost 50/50 for a while, until Rondo gets the groove back. So I hope it doesn't mess with his head. But I agree, I think he will slide to the 2, and AB be the 6th man, with him goin in for Craw then Craw going back in for Rondo.

He has rarely missed chucking up difficult shots lately. Or he doesnt take them. He def has matured the past 3-4 games.

Stevens deserves alot cr imo

Lets also realize Crawford always has had talent, with more than just scoring.  He could always pass and rebound.  Stevens has put him in a position to use his talents and Crawford just looks very comfortable.

[BballTim]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

  Not sure why you'd expect those guys to have overly high ast/to ratios. In any case, just watch Crawford play. He takes ill-advised shots, even against double teams. He frequently ignores better options when he's getting ready to start his move. Once he starts his move (to dribble around until he can get a shot off) he's generally locked into the play and rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him. Like I said, he's making a lot of those bad shots, but that won't last forever.

[Celtics18]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

  Not sure why you'd expect those guys to have overly high ast/to ratios. In any case, just watch Crawford play. He takes ill-advised shots, even against double teams. He frequently ignores better options when he's getting ready to start his move. Once he starts his move (to dribble around until he can get a shot off) he's generally locked into the play and rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him. Like I said, he's making a lot of those bad shots, but that won't last forever.

Crawfish is such an enigma.  I'm starting to find that it looks like he "rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him" yet at the last minute, he often finds the open guy when it looked like he just had his head down, looking for the shot.

The dribbling around in circles that he is often seen doing out near mid-court borders on comical.  I am always expecting him to get stripped, but he rarely does.

I am definitely learning to appreciate Jordan Crawford's extremely funky looking, but so far much more effective than expected, game. 

Those slow motion, herby jerky, in the lane pull ups and floaters are absolute money.   

I still don't quite know what to make of him, but I'm enjoying the Jordan Crawford experience right now. 

[Celtics18]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

The only that comes to mind from last night, is when he chucked up a 30 foot 3 with like 10 seconds left on the shot clock. The announcer literally went "ya, you can't do that" lol. But that is his mentality, so I somewhat understand when he does hilarious things like that.

When Rondo comes back, I expect him and Steez to split minutes almost 50/50 for a while, until Rondo gets the groove back. So I hope it doesn't mess with his head. But I agree, I think he will slide to the 2, and AB be the 6th man, with him goin in for Craw then Craw going back in for Rondo.

I foresee Rondo and Bradley as the starting backcourt with Crawfish getting the bulk of the back up minutes and Lee getting the rest.  Pressey, unfortunately, is likely to get dropped from the rotation.

I can't possibly see Rondo and Crawford starting together.  To me, Rondo and Avery make so much more sense as a starting backcourt.  Avery is a fantastic off-the-ball player.  He cuts extremely well, and his pull up jumper off the catch is starting to look very wet lately. 

Craw will still get his minutes as an off-the-bench combo guard.  I do look forward to some stretches with Rondo and Craw in there together, though.  They'll be entertaining to watch. 

[Celtics4ever]

I think Craw is a better shooter than AB.  Stats bear this out marginally and he also scores more PPG.  It could happen folks.   AB has improved but he is not taking giant steps.  I could see him included in a package.  Stevens and Craw have a connection since Butler played him in NCAA when he was at Xav.

He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes

I would like to point out that anytime AB handles the ball he too makes TOs and dumb plays.  He also has not been as dominant on D.

Ask who has played better thus far?  To me the answer is Crawford. It remains to be seen how well RR will be when he comes back.   But based on who has done more for the team and actually won us some games with 4th Quarter scoring it's been Jordan.

[CantBeRight]

Terrence Jones.

[ssspence]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

  Not sure why you'd expect those guys to have overly high ast/to ratios. In any case, just watch Crawford play. He takes ill-advised shots, even against double teams. He frequently ignores better options when he's getting ready to start his move. Once he starts his move (to dribble around until he can get a shot off) he's generally locked into the play and rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him. Like I said, he's making a lot of those bad shots, but that won't last forever.

Because 2 are All-Star PGs, one is reigning ROY and a PG, and the last is a very good PG, as well. And Crawford is our PG.

He's not putting up a silly number of shots (10 pg). He's shooting 39% from 3, 89% from the line. He has the top PER on the team (19).

And from Eric Weiss' analysis, the following:

Crawford ranks 10th of 156 players in points off of pull-up jumpshots/game. Crawford's spacial efficiency's are decent overall, but his uncanny ability to shoot off of the dribble ranks 7th out of 25 players who have scored at least 90 points off the dribble. Crawford's 46% eFG on these shots is tied with Steph Curry among league leaders.

The guy can create his own shot, and he can fill it up.

I get that you don't like the way he plays, but if we're talking about Crawford's improvement this year, the statistics don't back you up.

[Redz]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

  Not sure why you'd expect those guys to have overly high ast/to ratios. In any case, just watch Crawford play. He takes ill-advised shots, even against double teams. He frequently ignores better options when he's getting ready to start his move. Once he starts his move (to dribble around until he can get a shot off) he's generally locked into the play and rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him. Like I said, he's making a lot of those bad shots, but that won't last forever.

Because 2 are All-Star PGs, one is reigning ROY and a PG, and the last is a very good PG, as well. And Crawford is our PG.

He's not putting up a silly number of shots (10 pg). He's shooting 39% from 3, 89% from the line. He has the top PER on the team (19).

And from Eric Weiss' analysis, the following:

Crawford ranks 10th of 156 players in points off of pull-up jumpshots/game. Crawford's spacial efficiency's are decent overall, but his uncanny ability to shoot off of the dribble ranks 7th out of 25 players who have scored at least 90 points off the dribble. Crawford's 46% eFG on these shots is tied with Steph Curry among league leaders.

The guy can create his own shot, and he can fill it up.

I get that you don't like the way he plays, but if we're talking about Crawford's improvement this year, the statistics don't back you up.

He really has been remarkable.  I think the rub is whether he can play that style successfully over the long haul.  It sure would be a lot of fun to see him and Rondo on the same team if he can maintain the attitude and output.

[BballTim]

Crawford has played pretty good.  I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  How bad does a player have to be that a team literally gives him away for NOTHING?  I don't understand how Crawford could have burned his bridge with Washington that badly.

  He makes a lot of dumb plays. Some of them are bailed out when he makes a fairly wild shot but that probably comes and goes. We'll see how he reacts when Rondo comes back, from what I heard he didn't react too well to Wall stepping back into the starting lineup.

Wanna back that up with something? He's 17 in assist to turnover ratio in the league, ahead of guys like Tony Parker, Jrue Holliday, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic, and otherwise has been pretty darn clutch in the 4th quarter.

  Not sure why you'd expect those guys to have overly high ast/to ratios. In any case, just watch Crawford play. He takes ill-advised shots, even against double teams. He frequently ignores better options when he's getting ready to start his move. Once he starts his move (to dribble around until he can get a shot off) he's generally locked into the play and rarely looks at who might be freed up when the defense collapses on him. Like I said, he's making a lot of those bad shots, but that won't last forever.

Because 2 are All-Star PGs, one is reigning ROY and a PG, and the last is a very good PG, as well. And Crawford is our PG.

  They're generally seen as more scoring than passing pgs, which doesn't typically indicate a high ast/to ratio.

He's not putting up a silly number of shots (10 pg). He's shooting 39% from 3, 89% from the line. He has the top PER on the team (19).

And from Eric Weiss' analysis, the following:

Crawford ranks 10th of 156 players in points off of pull-up jumpshots/game. Crawford's spacial efficiency's are decent overall, but his uncanny ability to shoot off of the dribble ranks 7th out of 25 players who have scored at least 90 points off the dribble. Crawford's 46% eFG on these shots is tied with Steph Curry among league leaders.

The guy can create his own shot, and he can fill it up.

  He's scoring much more efficiently than he has in the past, hopefully it's more improvement than a hot streak. I said that he makes a good amount of his ill-advised shots, hopefully it will last.

I get that you don't like the way he plays, but if we're talking about Crawford's improvement this year, the statistics don't back you up.

  What I said basically boils down to his taking fairly difficult, contested shots when better options are available and, while he's making a decent amount of them, I'm concerned that won't last. What kind of statistics would you expect to either back that up or discredit it?

[hwangjini_1]

3sp, redz, and tim all make very, very good points above on crawford. clearly, so far this season he has shown more control, discipline, and maturity than anytime during his career. i never expected this from him, color me wrong.

congrats go to crawford AND stevens on this.

but the 2 key questions, to me, are....

- can crawford keep this up over a season? a career? let's wait and see and hope for the best.

- what happens when rondo returns? basically there are only a few possible scenarios that could unfold....

1. he and bradley continue to start and rondo comes off the bench.

2. after everyone stops laughing at #1 above, more likely is rondo starts with bradley. i am not arguing this should be the case, only stating a possible scenario. if so, how will crawford handle being "benched" and having to alternate between both reserve gp and reserve sp roles? personally, i think he could be a GREAT 6th man. but can stevens sell him on this role is the question.

3. rondo starts with crawford as sg. honestly, crawford is a better sg than pg. coming off the bench, he could concentrate on shooting/scoring he would be able to show case his talents. and god knows the celtics need scoring. but i worry about him regressing to the "wiz crawford" and putting up low percentage shots again. but then, i worry about way to many things in life.

the key may be stevens. stevens has to sell crawford on whatever role the team needs over crawford's imaginings about himself. team before ego. so far, stevens has done so very, very well.  can he continue to do it? [dang]ed if i know, but i hope he can.

[Celtics4ever]

I think it's safe to say that JC has been a pleasant surprise.  I 've also been surprised by KO's rebounding and Vitor.

1. he and bradley continue to start and rondo comes off the bench

This may happen during Rondo's recovery.  But after that if he is well, I don't see him sitting folks.