Jamal Crawford may be left out of a place in the LA Clippers rotation with all their acquisitions this summer.
The LA Clippers abruptly turned from losers to big winners in the offseason when DeAndre Jordan returned. They had multiple acquisitions to strengthen their perimeter play like Paul Pierce and Lance Stephenson.
These players are used to having the ball in their hands and they would blend well with the top playmaker in the league, Chris Paul and spot-up shooter J.J. Redick. The question is, how will Jamal Crawford fare?
As Bleacher Report notes, Crawford's only contribution to the Clippers is scoring off the bench. To be fair, he did that well winning his second Sixth Man award in 2014 with the team. Even in the years he didn't take the award, he was always in the discussion. Crawford is an explosive scorer and a spectacular ballhandler earning him the moniker J-Crossover.
However, critics of Crawford's game note that the biggest reason why Crawford did well in the Clippers bench is because it was awful. They simply did not have any options with Jordan Hamilton, Reggie Bullock, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Dahntay Jones. They had one of the weakest benches in the league.
That would not be the case now with Pierce and Stephenson and even Wesley Johnson entering the fold. Crawford may not even be the sixth man anymore.
J-Crossover himself seems to have an inkling of things to come. He was asked by fans on whether he will stay with the Clips, and his response on Twitter was "I think."
Another question was why he's not a starter somewhere else and he turns to Twitter again with a cryptic "??"
SB Nation noted, there was legitimate interest shown by the Cleveland Cavaliers for Jamal offering up the Brendan Haywood contract. Crawford could be a better version of J.R. Smith for the Cavs and the Clippers could get cap relief from the contract. The buzz is that the Clippers wanted a real player in return because at that time they thought DeAndre was leaving.
The Haywood contract is gone and the Cavs may have looked elsewhere but there are other teams that will take J-Crossover to play the role he did with the Clippers. They will unravel when the season starts.