clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Atlanta Hawks Season Preview: Rookies Jordan Crawford And Pape Sy

Peachtree Hoops offers its Summer League assessment of Jordan Crawford:

I came away really impressed with Crawford as well. I knew that he was an explosive scorer coming out of college but I did not know what kind of overall game he possesses. He showed a keen sense for play making with an excellent passing ability. After watching him, you really can see why the comparisons to Jamal Crawford are valid. He has excellent range on his shot and a knack for getting into the paint and drawing fouls. He has an array of floaters in his arsenal around the hoop. He too had some issues with turning the ball over and in decision making but I am not going to hold that against him or Teague as they were seeing their first real action in the NBA Summer League or not. Will he contribute right away? I would say no just because of the number of guards on the Hawks roster. However, Crawford strikes me as a very confident player though and should a trade occur that clears the way for him I would expect him to step up if his number were called. He finished with the very nice averages of 16.2 points per game, 3.4 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.8 steals over the course of Summer League. 

Hoopinion feels good about Crawford's long-term role as a Hawk:

Unless the Hawks find Jamal Crawford's expiring contract more valuable than Jamal Crawford the basketball player, it will probably be a season until Jordan Crawford fits in the rotation. That's not necessarily a bad thing. In addition to his basketball gifts,Crawford displayed a relative physical frailty in Summer League. He'll be 22 by the time the season starts, but his transfer from Indiana to Xavier means he played just two seasons of college basketball. An early stretch in the D-League wouldn't hurt his development.

That Crawford (like Jeff Teague the year before) is a longer-term prospect gives some hope to those who worry about the organization's commitment to (or even acknowledgment of) the future.

Peachtree Hoops watched Pape Sy in action, and still doesn't know what to make of him:

Sy was the one guy that I came away from Summer League not seeing enough of. He only appeared in two games because of a sore Achilies. He looked shaky in the first half of the opener against Memphis struggling with the ball pressure that the Grizzlies applied. However, he seemed to rebound in the second half when the Hawks made a run and showed an ability of getting into the lane and getting to the free throw line. He only hit 1-3 field goal attempts but got to the free throw line 9 times. He appears to be as long as advertised and I think he will have to get stronger but could project into a nice defensive player at the wing position. I want to see more of him.  

Hoopinion attempts to translate Pape Sy's mysterious past into NBA terms:

The good news there? That shooting percentage (at least when moving from a higher level of European basketball to the NBA) remains the most constant and Sy augmented his good shooting with a FT Rate of 52.7. Reinforcing that last item, in his very brief appearances at Summer League, Sy demonstrated two abilities: straight-line speed and a willingness to initiate contact.

The bad news? Most everything else. Sy was something like Maurice Evans (with more assists, and many more turnovers and personal fouls) but for the 13th-best (out of 16) team in the French League rather than the third-best team in the Eastern Conference of the NBA. 

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.