Should the Celtics re-sign Jordan Crawford?


One of the more surprising byproducts of this strange season is the play of Jordan Crawford.

The Celtics are only 20 games into the season and yet Crawford can be called the most productive player for Boston in a few of them. Take Tuesday night's game against Milwaukee. Crawford had 25 points in the win over the Bucks, scoring 15 in the fourth quarter alone.

So far this season, Crawford is averaging 13.1 ppg, 5.2 apg and a little over a steal a game to go along with 37.9 percent three-point shooting and a career-best 44.2 percent field goal percentage in almost 30 minutes per contest. All of this from a 25-year-old making a little over $2 million on the last year of his contract. The Celtics could have offered a contract extension to Crawford back in October, but decided against it.

With all of that being said, should the Celtics re-sign the boisterous guard?

No. Okay, moving on.

Wait, you want more than that? Fine.

One of the reasons Crawford is playing so well is because he's actually playing. Crawford can score, but that does not mean that he can score at will. He needs a little time to get into the flow of things or time to make up for mistakes. When the Celtics traded for Crawford last year, the thought was he could be a bench scorer. Well it didn't take too many air ball threes the first minute or two he was in the game to hit the brakes on that strategy.

Now that he's playing a ton of minutes, he'll still take horrid-, what was that-, look away from the television-type shots, but then he'll nail back-to-back triples to either tie a game or extend a lead. And there's the rub.

In order for Crawford to be productive, he has to play a ton of minutes and look to be a distributor to balance out all the "shake your head" moments. If he's playing lots of minutes, you probably don't have a very good team. The only way the Celtics can re-sign Crawford and get the most out of him is if they plan to start him or give him a majority of minutes off the bench for a season or two after this year. That isn't very likely with Rajon Rondo on his way back, the team seemingly committed to Avery Bradley as the off-guard and the potential of the Celtics drafting another guard with one of the two first round picks the team owns in the upcoming loaded draft.

Crawford's a good player with plenty of talent. He just doesn't fit what the team needs going forward. Remember, Danny Ainge traded for Crawford after Leandro Barbosa went down with an ACL tear. That was the third season-ending injury the Celtics had suffered, after Rondo and Jared Sullinger went out. That team was still fighting for a playoff run and needed guard help. Odds are, Ainge didn't really look past last season when he traded for Crawford. It's very doubtful he saw Crawford as a piece to build around going forward and probably saw him as a bandage to stop the hemorrhaging on his playoff squad.

Crawford probably won't be traded, unless it's part of a major deal, so enjoy all the crazy antics and flailing arms this season. He'll be someone else's headache next year.

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