Jae Crowder further assimilating
It goes without saying that adding Jae Crowder to Utah’s ranks was an upgrade over Rodney Hood, especially considering how much the latter is struggling in his new home (which is quite sad to witness, to be honest). Crowder may not have the knock-down shooting potential of Hood, but his energy, versatility, great attitude that includes a willingness to come off the bench and his defense make him a much better fit.
Almost immediately, Crowder stepped in to be a solid contributor for the Jazz and one of their most important scorers off the bench. Even so, at times Crowder’s shot selection and decision making were discouraging at best. Although he averaged a solid 11.8 points per game in his 27 regular season contests with the Jazz, he shot just 38.6 percent from the field and 31.6 percent from deep.
Both of those figures were below his career averages and worse than what he shot in the first half of the season in Cleveland. Things didn’t get much better in the playoffs as he shot just 32.4 percent from the field, which was worse than the regular season, and went just 33.3 percent from deep. That was better efficiency, but his attempts in the postseason went from 4.3 to 6.0. Honestly, six three-point attempts is far too many for Crowder, in my opinion.
The good thing about Crowder, though, is that he has a clear desire to modify his game and improve. He fits the Jazz mold and mantra in just about every way. It was undoubtedly hard for him to join a new squad midseason as he was flung into the flames and tried to learn his role on the fly.
He now has an entire offseason to get better acquainted with what the Jazz want him to be, do and work on. While improving on the court will be critical, Crowder will also need to do a lot of off-court film study and work with Utah’s coaches as much as possible so he can get a sense of how he can best be assimilated with the team.
Going through training camp and preseason with this squad will be impactful as well, as it will give him even more opportunity to understand Utah’s system and discover his role within it. Crowder already showed last season how valuable he can be to this Jazz squad. If he’s able to grow further upon that, then he could be an absolute game changer, be it off the bench or possibly replacing Derrick Favors (should he leave the Jazz) in the starting lineup.