Jordan Crawford, a four-year NBA veteran who is known around the league as a high volume bench scorer, didn't have much like this summer in free agency. The Sacremento Kings offered him a deal though but he quickly turned it down because he didn't want to come off the bench in a team that will perhaps have very little chance of entering the playoffs this coming season.
David Pick, a Senior writer at Eurobasket.com and contributor to Basketball Insiders, spoke to Jordan Crawford. He said the Kings extended an off-season deal, wasn't comfortable with a backup role in Sacramento.
But perhaps Crawford simply had a different assessment of himself than that of Sacramento and other teams around the league that's why no deal was made this offseason? Bryan Rose of Fan Sided thinks that it is the reason why the 2010 first-round pick opted to play overseas:
There's little reason for Jordan Crawford to be insulted with a bench role on any team, let alone the Kings as he would have likely drawn a significant amount of playing time. It's not as if he was signing on to be a 13th man. Regardless it doesn't appear as if any other NBA teams agreed with Jordan Crawford's assessment of himself as the guard decided to sign with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association given his lack of interest.
And now Crawford can have the entire spotlight for himself in his new team. In a preseason showcase in China, Crawford, put on a scoring clinic.
"I had about 30," Crawford said via text message to Basketball Insiders. "They're telling me to take over in crucial points of the game, but I'm not focused on just scoring," Crawford added. "I really just want to win the championship. It'll be easy averaging 30 points per game, but NBA teams will value me more if I win a championship, rather than put up big numbers every night and lose."
Jordan Crawford agreed to a five-month, $1.4 million deal and will have his season debut on November 2, against the Sichuan Blue Whales and its star Ron Artest a.k.a. Metta World Peace /The Panda's Friend.
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