Jamal Crawford: “Haven’t Been This Motivated” Since Leaving the Blazers

Jamal Crawford didn’t have an overly successful tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers during the 2011-12 lockout season. At the time, Crawford was just a handful of seasons removed from averaging 18-20 points, but he only managed to average 14 per game with Portland. His stop with the Blazers ended up being his only season in town, and he left for the Los Angeles Clippers in the offseason.

Crawford now approaches the offseason after a somewhat unimpressive season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, having averaged 10.3 points on the second-least minutes of his career (20.7). Questions about his age — he’s 38 — bring doubts, but it’s only motivating him, he told Alex Kennedy on the HoopsHype Podcast:

“I truly haven’t been this motivated since I left Portland to go to the L.A. Clippers. At that time, people were saying, ‘Oh, you’re 32 years old and you had a slow year in Atlanta and now you just had a slow year in Portland during the lockout year!’ And I was like, ‘No, it was the situation. The situations I was in were different from the situations I had been in during past years! But it’s okay because in this next situation, they’re going to use me like I’ve been used in the past and you guys will see that nothing has changed.’”

Crawford is a three-time Sixth Man of the Year. He’s played 18 seasons in the NBA, starting in 2000-01 at 20 years old.