When one thinks of 6th Man in the NBA, two names pop up in our head. The first is Lou Williams, and the other is Jamal Crawford. Both of these players have won the 6th Man of the Year honor thrice in their careers. Jamal Crawford has a lot of achievements to his name, having played in the NBA for 20 years.
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Crawford is often regarded to as one of the best ball handlers in the league’s history. Drafted in 2000, Crawford played in the NBA for 20 seasons before he hung up his boots. He worked as a broadcaster on the league pass before signing a deal with TNT last year.
Recently, he appeared on the Draymond Green show, where they talked about a multitude of topics. One of them was even NFL superstar Tom Brady.
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Jamal Crawford talked about his popularity in Michigan
While Crawford was on the podcast with Draymond Green, they covered quite a few topics. They talked about Jamal mentoring players like Zach Lavine, Dejounte Murray, Paolo Banchero, and more. Then they went on to discuss the NIL deals the athletes now have in high school and colleges.
Discussing the same, Crawford talked about how if NIL deals existed in the 90s and the 2000s, the NCAA would have earned so much more off of players staying and earning in college, instead of rushing to the NBA Draft.
He then went on to talk about how he had a headband in college named ‘The Crawford’ and how it made him popular in college. He said,
“At that time, I was at school with Tom Brady and I was more popular on campus than he was at that time because Drew Hansen was the quarterback there and he was kind of like the guy.”
Brady was considered an underdog in college, and the same way in the NFL as well, seeing as how he was selected as the 199th pick in the 6th round in the 2000 Draft. Twenty-three years later and now he’s considered the GOAT.
How can NIL Deals help student-athletes?
As Draymond Green and Jamal Crawford said, NIL deals are good for the players as that helps them earn millions, all while they’re still in college. This removes the pressure of rushing to the pros to start earning money for their family.
Another thing with players earning right from schools and colleges would be that they would hopefully learn to be responsible with money earlier in their life, rather than waiting till the pros.
