Jae Crowder – Improve efficiency by bettering decision making
A lot was made of the fact that Jae Crowder played much better as a member of the Utah Jazz than he did with the Cleveland Cavaliers. While there is a lot of evidence to support that, particularly when considering his pure impact, such actually wasn’t the case in terms of his shooting figures.
After shooting 41.8 percent from the field and 32.8 percent from deep in Cleveland, Crowder saw those numbers decrease in Utah to 38.6 percent and 31.6 percent, respectively.
Crowder appeared much more comfortable in Utah and made a lot more winning plays and key contributions for the Jazz than he did for Cleveland. Nevertheless, his shooting efficiency was sometimes a clear detriment. However, it should be noted that a lot of this stemmed more from his poor decision making than from a mere problem with his shot.
Part of this obviously had to do with Crowder learning a new system on the fly midseason. Having the latter part of the year under his belt as well as training camp with the Jazz should help correct this. But the biggest thing for Jae will be to play smarter within that system and look to take his shots when he has them, but move the ball when he doesn’t.
Jae has a lot of important skills that he brings to the table, but hoisting shot after shot shouldn’t exactly be his game. As he gets wiser about when to pull the trigger and when to look for a better opportunity, his efficiency is going to rise significantly. And when it does, he’ll significantly lift this Jazz team to greater heights.