Minnesota Timberwolves: Jamal Crawford wins Teammate of the Year

On Monday night, the NBA held its second annual NBA Awards Show. Minnesota Timberwolves guard Jamal Crawford walked away with a nice award.

The Minnesota Timberwolves were represented well at the 2018 NBA Awards Show. They didn’t have a candidate for MVP, Defensive Player of the Year or Rookie of the Year award, but they had something equally as important.

In the world of basketball, we often measure a player’s success based on their in-game statistics. This is usually a relatively fair way of doing things. For example, James Harden‘s 30-9-5 per game stat line is much more impressive and addx much more value than Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s 13-5-2 averages. However, every so often in this wonderful league called the NBA, we get reminded that statistics don’t tell the whole story.

Jamal Crawford was voted by his peers as the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award for the 2017-18 NBA season.

In his first year with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Crawford averaged a mere 10.3 points, 2.3 assists and 1.2 rebounds per game, but as the award points out, his stats weren’t the reason he won the honor.

Jamal Crawford definitely wasn’t the best teammate in terms of on-court production. I mean, he shot a fairly rough 41.5 percent from the field and 33.1 percent from 3-point range. Those numbers aren’t good, but Crawford stood out to his fellow NBA players for his unselfish mentality, his ability to mentor the young players on the team and his willingness to be an ambassador for the league.

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If you don’t think that Jamal Crawford had an impact on the success of the Timberwolves beyond his 10 points per game, you must not have watched many Wolves games.

Crawford was basically a player-coach, similar to how they do things in the Big 3 basketball league. Yeah, he played his 20.7 minutes per game, but his real impact was felt from the bench when he was encouraging teammates and coaching them from a player’s perspective instead of a head coach’s perspective.

Sometimes, that can make all the difference in the world. There’s a reason LeBron James always wanted to be coached by a former player. It’s just different.

I’m not trying to say that Jamal Crawford had a bigger coaching impact than Thibs, but sometimes, as a player, it’s just nice to be given some advice outside of the head coach screaming in your ear. Jamal Crawford was that encouraging voice.

Crawford was always taking young players under his wing and showing them the ropes during the season. He was frequently talking to Tyus Jones on the court, putting his arm around players and he also took a backseat role in order to create more room for success for his teammates.

Jamal Crawford recently declined his player option with the Wolves for the 2018-19 NBA season. All signs are now pointing to Crawford moving on from his short chapter in Minnesota and signing with a new team this summer once free agency begins on July 1.

With that being said, even though Jamal Crawford’s time with Minnesota was relatively short, it was very impactful.

Crawford helped the Wolves break their long playoff drought and left an impression on the organization that will continue to impact the Wolves long after he moves on.

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The Minnesota Timberwolves definitely owe Jamal Crawford a giant thank you — and this award (even though it wasn’t given by the Wolves) should suffice.