Utah Jazz rank 2018: Jae Crowder is the sixth man

Jae Crowder was a positive impact player for the Utah Jazz last season, but still seeks a bounce-back campaign in his second year with the team.

Sitting at No. 6 in this countdown, Jae Crowder is clearly a key cog in the Utah Jazz machine. Such was definitely the case last season, when he helped the team to a 29-6 finish. That said, it’s hard to make heads or tails of his post-deadline run with the Jazz, statistically speaking.

Individually, it was a struggle for the 28-year-old; he was a sub-40 percent shooter from the field, knocked down just 31.6 percent of his triples and struggled with his rim finishing at times as well. And yet, the Jazz played their best ball after acquiring Crowder and boasted one of the league’s most productive five-man units with him at the power forward.

It’s an oft-recited stat, but bears mentioning again here — when Crowder joined Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles and Rudy Gobert on the hardwood, the Jazz straight-up waxed people. That lineup outscored opponents by 29.9 points per 100 possessions, No. 1 league-wide among units with 150-plus minutes.

That’s an unsustainable number over the course of a season, but Crowder can continue to be a big-time positive impact player for the team, particularly if he can get his groove back.

In year two with the Jazz, he’s looking to do just that. According to Crowder, last season wasn’t close to an indication of what he has in the tank as a player. That assessment rings true, too — it’s hard to envision a player performing at his peak after his mother passed away and he was traded twice over a six-month span.

His game and his mental state clearly took a hit. Now, though, he looks to have regained his zest for hoops. Entering the 2018-19 campaign, Crowder has reportedly lost 14 pounds, and is said to have spent a lot of the summer in gyms, working on his game. It doesn’t hurt that he feels like he’s finally found his NBA home after spending time with the Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers over the years, either.

At the least, he should be quicker, stronger and more motivated than he was than last season.

The seventh-year pro’s preseason was a mixed bag, but one thing was clear — he’ll likely be the first player off the bench for Jazz coach Quin Snyder on most nights. That will break up the team’s twin towers and, if Crowder can rebound, give Snyder’s squad better spacing offensively and more versatility defensively.

It sounds like a good recipe for building big leads; perhaps not 30 points/100 poss. big, but enough to be one of the Association’s better five-man crews once again.