It’s Time We Start Talking…
…about this guy named Jordan Crawford. This guy is good. This guy has a very bright future. This guy (hopefully) will be in a Wizards uniform for many years to come.
We’ve been hesistant on getting too excited about rookie Jordan Crawford thus far, due in many ways because DC fans are “glass half-empty” type of fans. Our minds are set to think that the free-agent we bring in won’t live up to expectations and the rookies we draft or acquire won’t do anything in this league to create expectations to live up to, that’s what losing has done to us.
We wanted to see more than just a couple of games from Crawford. We wanted to see him play aganist the top talent like the Miami Heat’s of the world. We wanted to see him make a clutch shot when we needed him most. We wanted to see some leadership from him with the other young guys on the team. We wanted to see him take over the team when he deemed neccessary, all before we made our judgments. Well folks… he’s now done that and has done it very well.
In the last 12 games, Crawford has been averaging 21.4 pts, 4.4 rebs and 5 assists a game. He is one game removed from his first career triple-double as he put up 21 pts, 10 rebs and 11 assists at home vs. the Cavaliers. When you put Crawford’s statline over these 12 games aganist some of the best in the business: Stephen Curry’s 18 pts, 3 rebs and 5 assists, Paul Pierce’s 18 pts, 5 rebs and 3 assists and Joe Johnson’s 18 pts, 4 rebs and 4 assists, Crawford not only holds his own but he surpasses the competition.
It’s hard to predict what Crawford’s statistics would look like had he been with us the entire year but one could only guess based on what we’ve seen that it would have been more of the same. If that were to hold true then we would be looking at two of the top-3 Rookie of the Year candidates sitting in the same back court, John Wall and Jordan Crawford with Blake Griffin being the third. Crawford performing like he has isn’t a surprise to all, the Bleacher Report all but predicted it. As I was doing my research I came across Bleacher Report’s, (one of the more credible sports site online) “2011 Top-10 Candidates for Rookie of the Year” article written a few days after last year’s NBA draft where they put Jordan Crawford at #6. Jordan Crawford was drafted at pick #27 in this past year’s draft, but yet they thought so highly of Crawford to put him at #6 (which was actually #5 if you were to exclude Blake Griffin), that right there tells a story.
He has now finished his 20th game (4-more games than an NFL season) with the Wizards after another stellar performance tonight vs. the Bobcats. He won’t have played enough games to be in the actual Rookie of the Year running but talent-wise and performance-wise we are being shown that we have one of the bright stars of this game and that makes me excited and should make you excited too.
Photos courtesy of ESPN.com and Examiner.com
