Jamal Crawford deserved the Sixth man award

“That’s twice in the season. It’s not about what I feel, honestly, because I learned with the All-Star Game that you can only control what you can control. Whenever it’s up to the coaches or media or whatever, you expect the unexpected.”- Jamal Crawford.

Jamal Crawford faced a couple of snubs this season. First was not making it to the All Star team. Second was losing out on winning the Sixth man of the year award to J.R. Smith. The first honour is a bit arbitrary since the winners are decided by fan votes and this year the coaches seemingly took it upon themselves to appreciate and recognize the big men by voting a bunch of them to the all start reserves. Because of the voting being restricted to backcourt and frontcourt players instead of two guards, two forwards and one center, the big men lost out a bit on fan voting for starters. And in the resulting overcompensation by the coaches for voting on the reserves, some smaller players got left out. One of them was Jamal Crawford.

“I think he is Sixth Man of the Year. J.R. Smith’s had a great year but everybody on his team got hurt so he got to start. But Jamal, he’s been playing like the Sixth Man of the Year from the word ‘go.’ It helps [the Clippers] tremendously. He can get 20 on any given night and most times he does.”- Kobe Bryant

Even when he lost out on making it to the All Star team, he could console himself by vying for the Sixth man of the year award. After all, it is a lot less arbitrary and with the way Crawford has been leading the Clippers off the bench, it seemed like he had that one award at least in his bag. But it was not to be as it went to Smith. I, for one, feel that Crawford was robbed. You would feel the same way too if you look at the stats of the two players. Here’s a comparison of the two players-

Minutes-

JR Smith averaged 34 minutes per game, Jamal Crawford averaged 29 minutes. Smith had more time to pad his stats on the court.

FG%-

Smith shot 42% from the field and 36% from deep, Crawford shot 44% and 38% respectively. Smith was 76% from the line and Crawford was 87%, including two stretches of more than 40 consecutive free throws made, and a franchise-record streak of 58 free throws in a row at one point. Crawford also set a franchise record with 149 3-pointers,

Bare stats-

Smith- 18 PPG, 5 RPG, 2.7 APG. Efficiency- 7Crawford- 16.5 PPG, 2.5 APG, 2 RPG. Efficiency – 9

Back in 2010 as a member of the Atlanta Hawks, Jamal won the Sixth man of the year award for the first time. This season Crawford led the league off the bench in scoring per 26 minutes and in simple plus-minus.

“He’s been a huge catalyst for us all season, from Day 1. So it’s hard for me to look at it and say Jamal didn’t deserve that. But we can’t control the voting. Every statistic and everything he’s brought to our team is proven. Makes plays off the dribble, teams double-team him, it opens up the court for other players, makes passes off the pick-and-rolls, plays with tempo, stretches the defense. He’s given me a very good effort defensively, he’s given me a very good effort from day 1. All those things about him being a scorer — yeah, that’s what he’s known for and he’s really good at it, especially when he gets going. But all the other intangibles he’s been able to help us with helps us win games. He’s been a huge catalyst for us from day 1 and the whole season. It’s hard for me to look at it and say Jamal didn’t deserve that. But we can’t control the voting.”- Vinny Del Negro.

J.R. Smith made a late season push for the award as he had three straight 30-point games from March 26-29 – that hasn’t happened since Milwaukee’s Ricky Pierce did it in 1990. But look at what Crawford did all season long. Crawford scored 20 points or more in six of the Clippers’ first nine games. Only Ricky Pierce in 1989-90 had ever done it before as a reserve. He scored 20 points or more 28 times this season. Crawford was a league best +220 in the fourth quarter this season, that’s the best mark in the league. James is second with 209 plus minus rating.

“There are definitely guys who are deserving. Jarrett Jack had a great season, Kevin Martin had a great season, J.R., myself as well so salute to all those guys. I can’t say I was shocked because I saw where it was going over the last couple weeks, I guess. I look at a whole season from start to finish, but I saw what people kind of started going with toward the end.”- said Crawford.

Here’s a look at how the voting stacked up-

1. J.R. Smith, Knicks: 72 first-place votes, 484 points2. Jamal Crawford, Clippers: 31 first-place votes, 352 points3. Jarrett Jack, Warriors: 14 first-place votes, 170 points4. Kevin Martin, Thunder: Two first-place votes, 31 points5. Ryan Anderson, Hornets: One first-place vote, 11 points

Had Crawford won the award this season, he would become only the fourth player to have won it more than one time. Kevin McHale, Ricky Pierce and Detlef Schrempf are the three players who hold that honour.

“To be perfectly, perfectly honest, coming in to the season, winning the Sixth Man or All-Star wasn’t on my radar. It was more just kind of getting my respect back because people thought I had lost a step going to Portland, and that was a heck of a year and it motivated me to be ready coming into this year, so that was No. 1.”

Last season, Crawford averaged 13.9 points and shot only 38 percent from the field. It’s understandable that he would want to redeem himself, more than he would seek out personal glory.

“Honestly I feel we have the best bench in the NBA. So I kind of see myself and J.R., even though people look as us as scorers off the bench, I see us in different roles.”- said Crawford.

Crawford played better, in a reduced role, and yet Smith won. Smith was basically a starter who came off the bench, Crawford had a different role to adjust to. Talk about clutch. Crawford is 22-of-39 (56.4%) in the final five minutes of games that are within five points. Award or no award, Crawford will be vindicated if he can help guide the Clippers to the championship this season.