Atlanta's trade acquisition of Jamal Crawford was seen either as a questionable ploy to correct the Hawks' most deafening weakness (bench guard play), or a quiet coup bound to boost the team to solid ground. Atlanta coach Mike Woodson -- a fundamental-focused, stoic defensive mind -- figured into the argument of the former. Crawford is a mysterious player, not conducive to Woodson's dependency on consistency (Josh Smith aside).But the latter has actually been true: Woodson seems to really understand what Crawford offers, and Jam has rewarded the coach with stellar play through five games. Atlanta is sitting pretty at 4-1 after a successful 2-1 road swing. And Crawford is having the best season of his career so far.
Of course, it's early. But the Hawks managed to beat the Blazers in Portland and the Wizards at home, and hung with the Lakers in L.A. for a while before ceding the game. Add in wins over the Pacers and Kings, and Atlanta looks much improved.
Much of that can be credited to Crawford, who is shooting the ball better than he ever has. Jam is notoriously streaky, and this could very well be one of those infamous hot stretches. But it isn't as if Crawford is blowing away the record books within the small sample size -- it's conceivable that in his new role Crawford could keep this up. He actually hasn't shot the three-ball well (he's 30 points under his career average so far) and by anecdote he is taking smarter shots in total.
A key has been that Crawford has integrated himself into the main Hawks attack even though he has come off the bench. Woodson has done a great job keeping legit offensive weapons around Crawford, allowing the guard to use ball movement more than he ever could in New York or Golden State. Crawford has basically served as the point guard behind Mike Bibby, but by playing Jam with Joe Johnson, Woodson has relieved some of the associated pressures. After all, Crawford is a pure scorer who can pass a little. (Wednesday night in Sacramento, Woodson also played Crawford with Bibby and Johnson for a stretch, with Marvin Williams stepping up to power forward as Smith dealt with foul trouble. The line-up had a few incredibly smooth possessions.)
One interesting note about Crawford's performance to date has been that he's had one of the highest usage rates of his career. This often happens when starters become bench weapons -- Manu Ginobili and Jason Terry, for instance, usually have incredibly high usage rates. Crawford's usage has only been higher in 2003-04, the guard's final season in Chicago.
Usually, an increase in usage results in a decrease in efficiency. But throughout his career, Crawford has shown the ability to be as efficient with high usage rates as with low ones. (Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that Crawford has shown the ability to be as inefficient with low usage rates as with high ones, but let's not quibble over semantics.)
Crawford can be efficient at a usage rate near 25 percent -- in 2007-08 with New York, Crawford finished with a usage rate of 24.6 percent and an offensive rating of 109, the second best mark of his career. (That low point at the right of the graph is the aforementioned 2003-04 season in Chicago, where Jam wrote his ticket out of the Bulls plans.)
For the record, this season Crawford is at a usage of 24.9 percent. His offensive rating is 127, which would land somewhere around the third paragraph of this post. As I said, he's playing incredible ball this year. The real test, at this point, is what Woodson does when and if Crawford cools off. With Denver's awesome defense coming to Atlanta this weekend and a trip to Boston on tap next week, we could find out pretty soon.
