Utah Jazz ’17-18 review: Jae Crowder comes home

After joining the Utah Jazz at the trade deadline, Jae Crowder quickly became an important part of the team’s attack.

Last week, the NBPA began revealing its 2018 Players Voice Awards winners with the “Backbone” category. The award, which is one of the many revamped categories introduced this year, is “dedicated to the players that are the heart & soul of their team, he brings 100% to his squad!,” per the NBPA.

Despite being a late addition to the team, forward Jae Crowder took home the trophy for the Utah Jazz. And while he appeared in just 27 regular season games with the club, Crowder absolutely earned the recognition.

Crowder’s arrival via the Rodney Hood trade felt like a homecoming of sorts. His father, Corey, spent his rookie season with the Jazz band during the good ol’ days of Stockton-to-Malone and Coach Jerry Sloan. It was around that time that the younger Crowder first suited up in Jazz gear —

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It’s funny how things work out, eh?

After a rough go in Cleveland to start the season, the 27-year-old got to put the Jazz jersey on for real on February 9 against the Portland Trail Blazers.

The game proved to be a preview of things to come — Crowder scored 15 points, grabbed five boards and knocked down three triples in 29 minutes of play. Utah went on to win the game by 19 points. That joint success continued throughout the remainder of the season, leading into the playoffs.

Along the way, Crowder acted as something of an enforcer for the Jazz. His hard-nosed play often helped set a physical tone for the team. And whenever there was a ruckus, he was the first man on the scene to defend his teammates. Such was the case, for example, when Jeff Teague decided to light up Ricky Rubio —

After the game, Rubio said, “He’s going to be a great teammate for me, forever…” But Crowder is more than just a hired goon or a bodyguard for Jazzmen in peril. He’s a key cog in what was the best five-man unit in the NBA this past season.

Seriously.

Among five-man lineups that shared the floor for at least 150 minutes during the 2017-18 campaign, the combination of Rubio, Crowder, Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles and Rudy Gobert was No. 1 in the league in net rating, outscoring opponents by a whopping 27.4 points per 100 possessions. Simply put, things just clicked with Crowder.

The popular belief here is that Crowder somehow rediscovered himself offensively post-trade. However, that’s not 100 percent accurate. In fact, his effective field goal percentage with the Jazz (46.8) would be the lowest single-season mark of his career. Nevertheless, the Jazz soared on both sides of the ball with Crowder in the fold.

His impact, in totality, outweighed the streakiness of his jumpshot.

The great thing about that for the Jazz and their fans is that he can still get better. Crowder was largely learning new systems on the fly from the moment he was swapped in for Hood up to the end of the year. He may have averaged nearly 12 points per game after the move to Salt Lake City, but a greater understanding of where he can be effective in the team’s offense should result in an additional uptick from an efficiency standpoint.

That kind of knowledge is hard to gain when you’re already in-season, with precious little practice time to iron out the kinks. An offseason and a training camp will do wonders for Crowder’s fit going forward.

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Jae Crowder and Rodney Hood are vastly different players, so it’s hard to compare the two directly. That said, whereas Hood was a square peg at times Crowder’s integration with the Jazz has been almost seamless. That alone makes the deal that flip-flopped the two a win for Utah.

And now that Crowder has returned “home,” more wins are sure to follow.