Getty Shaun Livingston #34 of the Golden State Warriors takes a shot over Jae Crowder #99 of the Boston Celtics and Kelly Olynyk #41.
Ever since the Boston Celtics traded Jae Crowder in 2017, he’s been quite the NBA journeyman. He’s gone from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Utah Jazz to the Memphis Grizzlies to the Miami Heat to the Phoenix Suns. From 2017 to 2020, he played for six teams. While he hasn’t changed teams in two years, it appears that Crowder may be on the move again.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN reported on September 19 that Crowder was available via trade, though whether one goes down immediately or down the line remains to be seen.
“(The Suns) are in trade negotiations right now. A lot of them are centered around Jae Crowder. Jae Crowder is a player who’s available on the market right now. Whether or not there’s going to be a deal for him that materializes before now and next (year’s) trade deadline, we’ll have to wait and see.”
The Suns are in trade negotiations right now, mainly centered around Jae Crowder, per @WindhorstESPN. Bojan Bogdanovic is a potential target to monitor.
Windhorst also relays Phoenix is working on a long-term contract extension for Cam Johnson.
Crowder is on the last year of the three-year deal he agreed to when he signed with the Suns in 2020 and is slated to make $10,183,800 this coming season, according to Spotrac.
Celtics Urged to Acquire Crowder
On September 19, Brett Siegel of Sports Illustrated explained why the Celtics should go after Crowder, starting with how he could fill in for the injured Danilo Gallinari and his prior experience with the Celtics.
“With Gallinari out, the Celtics are suddenly thin at either forward position, which is why targeting Jae Crowder makes a lot of sense. Not to mention, he played with the Celtics from 2014-2017, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals with Boston in 2017.”
Siegel later talked about what the Celtics would have to do to get a deal done.
“Boston has made it clear that they are not afraid to spend money in order to contend for a championship either, which is why increasing their tax bill would not be a problem. Should the Celtics be on the receiving end of a Jae Crowder trade, though, they would likely be at least one of two other teams involved with the Suns, meaning that someone like Derrick White, Grant Williams, or Payton Pritchard would likely have to be on the move with a future second-round pick.”
The Celtics could also look to trade Gallinari for Crowder since he presumably will not play for most, if not the entire season, but he won’t be eligible to be traded until October 10, and that might not be the best look for the Celtics.
Crowder’s Playoff Resume
After the Crowder rumors surfaced, StatMuse tweeted a statistic that not many know about Crowder.
Jae Crowder has more career playoff points than
— Derrick Rose
— Tracy McGrady
— Jrue Holiday
— Anthony Davis
He’s made the playoffs in 9 of his 10 seasons.
This is not to say that Crowder is better than any of those players, but more to point out that he’s played on winning teams for most of his career. In fact, according to StatMuse, the 56 playoff games that Crowder has played over the past three years are the most any NBA player has played in that time span, due in part because he played in two consecutive NBA Finals with two different teams: the Suns and Heat.
Despite the playoff success he’s had, Crowder made it a point that he’d rather have more titles under his belt than points in the playoffs.