If you and I were sitting in a bar, having a couple drinks, and you asked me that question, I would say something like "ummm, any day now." Or better yet, I might say "wait, he hasn't already done that?!?" Even if we haven't heard about Crawford complaining about something, he most likely has already, am I right?Until someone successfully argues otherwise, I'll continue to blame most of last season's failure on Jamal Crawford.
A few weeks ago, I caught an article written by Chris Mannix of SI.com about Jamal Crawford. The article talked a bunch about how Crawford has "matured" and "learned to embrace his role" and other cliches of that nature.
The overall theme of the article is that Crawford used to be young and immature and only cared about "getting his", but now he's changed and mature and ready to do whatever it takes to win and is ready to "take one for the team", so to speak.
But I think it's all hogwash in so many different ways. Crawford has never been a team player and there is very few reasons he would start being that type of player now. For his entire career, Crawford has been nothing but a volume shooter that only cared about his prominence on the team. Chicago, New York (two different stints), Golden State, Atlanta and most definitely here in Portland last season. In fact, it was very well documented that Crawford was one of the players that led the charge against coach Nate McMillan that eventually got him run out of town and fired.
Sorry to be so negative about it, but Jamal Crawford is not going to change. And if there are any Clippers fans that are buying that story, they are going to be disappointed. I give it another year before Crawford starts complaining that he should have a bigger role on the team, or just leave for more money somewhere else.
There are very few stories of athletes who start out as young and immature and morph into veterans and mature. Sadly, it's just hard for them to change that much, no matter how good it sounds to say that.
