Jamal Crawford says he could average 20 points per game if he was still playing

In the most recent edition of NBA.com’s NBA Mailbag, three-time Sixth Man of the Year winner Jamal Crawford let it be known that at 43 years old, he could still get buckets in the NBA. 

When asked by Will in Vermont, “How much do you think you would average if you were playing in the NBA today?” Crawford gave his honest, if not overly optimistic, opinion of his skills. 

"“In a sixth-man role, I could average low 20s. In a starting role, I could average really high 20s.”"

- Jamal Crawford

How did other 43 year old players fare in the NBA?

While Crawford is known as one of the greatest Sixth Men, ball handlers, and microwave scorers of all time, he is also 43, an age only four players in history have ever hit in their NBA career. Excluding Nat Hickey, who played two games in the 1947-48 season for the Providence Steamrollers and set the NBA/BAA record for both oldest player and debut at 46 years old, the other three NBA greybeards, Vince Carter, Robert Parish, and Kevin Willis, had a hard time finding the basket in their age-43 and older seasons. 

The geriatric trio averaged 2.4, 5.0, and 3.7 points per game in their age 43 and older seasons. Vince Carter offers the best example of how Father Time remains undefeated, even for the most potent scorers. 

For eight seasons, from age 23 to 30, Carter averaged 24.6 points per game, with his lowest output coming in 2002-03 when he averaged 20.6 points per game. Coincidentally, Jamal Crawford’s single best scoring season came in 2007-08, when he also averaged 20.6 points per game. Crawford’s confidence made him one of the game’s best bench scorers, but by the end of his career, his scoring punch had dried up. In his final full NBA season, he averaged a paltry 7.9 points per game. 

If Jamal Crawford is suggesting he could average 20 points per game off the bench and hit the high 20s in a starting role as a 43-year-old is overly optimistic, to say the least, what are the chances he could hit those benchmarks in his physical prime?

Could Jamal Crawford average 30 points per game in today's NBA?

Crawford’s best three-season stretch came from 2007-08 to 2009-10, where he averaged 19.4 points per game and transitioned into a Sixth Man full-time. As a starter with the Knicks and then a brief spell in Golden State in 2007-08 and 2008-09, Crawford averaged 20.2 points per game in a much lower-scoring environment than where we find the game today. 

In 2007-08, teams averaged 99.9 points per game due to a league-average pace of 92.4 and a 107.5 offensive rating. The next season, 2008-09, it would be more of the same, as teams averaged 100 points per game, a 91.7 pace, and a 108.3 offensive rating. Compared to the 2022-23 full season marks of 114.7 points per game, 99.1 pace, and 114.8 offensive rating, scoring is in a much better place than it was 15 years ago. With the offensive surge, it’s no surprise that a player like Crawford would dream about his scoring chances in the modern game. 

However, just because teams are scoring more efficiently and playing faster doesn’t mean Crawford’s points per game would grow in lockstep. Over his two seasons as a starter, Crawford averaged 39.1 minutes per game, a figure no player has eclipsed season since Luol Deng in 2011-12. 

If we take Crawford’s 2007-08 season as an example, he averaged the fifth most minutes per game at 39.9, but in 2022-23, Fred VanVleet finished fifth in minutes per game at 36.74. Using the league average pace from both seasons, we can calculate the average number of possessions per minute, and we find that Crawford’s average number of possessions per game of 76.8 was greater than VanVleet’s 75.8. While the pace of play suits Crawford’s belief that he could average close to 30 points per game, he would see fewer possessions per game with a modern minutes load. 

Then, there is the question of scoring efficiency. Crawford never posted eye-popping shooting efficiency, but the league average effective field goal percentage has grown from 49.7 percent in 2007-08 to 54.5 percent in 2022-23. Giving Crawford the benefit of the doubt that the league environment is the only reason efficiency has improved, and not that players are also better, we can try and transpose what Crawford’s 2007-08 season would have looked like in 2022-23. 

In 2007-08, Crawford produced an effective field goal percentage of 47.3 percent against the league average of 49.7 percent. In 2022-23, if Crawford maintained his efficiency relative to the league average, he would have achieved an effective field goal percentage of 51.9 percent. Giving Crawford a little boost, we’ll keep his field goal attempts the same, even though they’d be fractionally lower, and 2007-08-Crawford in 2022-23, playing the fifth most minutes in the league per game, would have averaged 22.2 points per game. Not quite the high 20s he humbly predicted.

Crawford’s claim that off the bench, he could hit 20 points per game is more likely to hold water. His minutes wouldn’t be as restricted, and thus he’d get more benefit from the faster pace of today’s game, and his scoring efficiency was better off the bench than as a starter. 

Using the same method as before but transposing Crawford’s 2009-10 season, when he averaged 18.0 points per game and won his first Sixth Man of the Year, he would go from an average of 60.1 possessions per game to 64.2 in 2022-23, and his effective field goal percentage of 52.3 percent would grow to 56.9 percent. The results would produce, on average, almost one more field goal attempt per game with better efficiency and lead to 20.4 points per game.

Stylistically, Crawford would have almost certainly taken more 3-pointers, but that would have cost him a few trips to the free throw line. However, the math clearly shows that the scoring benefits of the modern NBA are not nearly as pronounced as former players would have you believe, especially for starters. 

Crawford’s confidence made him the explosive player we all love, but it’s also why he says silly things like he could average close to 30 points per game. When you use a time machine, you don’t get to pick and choose what parts of the past you bring.