Utah Jazz: 3 goals for Jae Crowder in 2018-19
By Mason McFee
2. Rank top five in scoring on the team
While this may seem like a lofty goal for a player that’s likely to be coming off the bench most of the season, it’s actually very achievable; Crowder almost accomplished the feat this past season.
The high scorer on the Jazz last season was Donovan Mitchell (20.5 points per game). The second highest was Rodney Hood (16.8) and the fifth-highest was Derrick Favors (12.3). Crowder was only 0.4 points behind Favors in scoring average, and someone next season is going to have to fill in the 16.8 points Hood averaged. Crowder can play that role.
Crowder is a career 9.0 points per game scorer, but with all due respect to the power forwards and centers the Dallas Mavericks cycled through at the beginning of Crowder’s career (and to Al Horford, Aron Baynes, Amir Johnson, etc.) this will be the first season Crowder has played with two big men that have gravitational pull. In other words, Crowder has a real shot at getting closer to the 2016-17 season where he ripped twine on 39.8 percent of his 3-point attempts and averaged 2.2 made 3-pointers per contest.
Put in simplest terms, Crowder figures to have a lot of open looks next season due to Snyder’s tendency to stagger Gobert and Favors’ minutes, allowing Crowder to be a supercharged version of Jonas Jerebko from last season. This brings up our final goal for Crowder next season.