Will the Sixers' Signing Of Jamal Crawford Help Keep Their Winning Streak Alive?

They finally did it. Will it help?

[photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images]

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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If you’ve watched the Philadelphia 76ers at all this season, you probably knew two things were going to happen on Saturday as they hosted the Atlanta Hawks: They were gonna win the game, and it was gonna be brutal to watch. Sure enough, for what feels like the 47th time this season, Trae Young gouged the Sixers -- this year’s Kemba Walker, clearly -- for 38 and 12, keeping the Hawks within arm’s length pretty much at all times throughout the game, even tying things up late after Tobias Harris got caught in no-man’s land on a switch and ending up giving up a wide-open three. But a couple Joel Embiid free throws (two of his 34 on the night) and a strong defensive stand later, and the sweet sounds of “Here Come the Sixers” were wafting triumphantly through the weary crowd at the not-Wells Fargo Center.

The good news is that the win was the Sixers’ fifth straight, tying their longest streak of the season and moving them even with the fourth-place Miami Heat -- though the Heat’s last-minute escape against the Oklahoma City Thunder bumped them back up a half-game on Philly last night. The bad news is said streak will come under imminent peril tonight, as the team begins a two-game road trip. The two teams they’ll be visiting (in Minnesota and Chicago) are among the NBA’s most woeful, and with a good deal of their respective cores still on the IR -- but none of that has convinced the Sixers not to lose on the road to such competition thus far this season, so no reason to believe it necessarily will now.

But of course, the Sixers will be receiving reinforcements in the form of their new free agency signee: veteran guard Jamal Crawford. Yes, the greatest wish of every Philly fan who still gets their Woj Bombs from Marcus Hayes columns came true on Monday, with the announcement that the three-time Sixth Man of the Year would be joining the Sixers for the remainder of the season. Norvel Pelle, the Process center born a couple years too late, was waived to make room for Crawford, and is expected to sign with the Houston Rockets once he clears waivers. 

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Why spend a roster spot on a 40-year-old combo guard -- not a cartoonish exaggeration, by the way, dude literally turned 40 on Friday -- who hasn’t played all season, hasn’t been an efficient scorer for several years, and didn’t play defense even when he was good? Good question, and from the sound of his media availability on Monday, Brett Brown didn’t seem particularly sure of the answer. The phrases “professional scorer” and “veteran presence” were used -- I even could’ve swore I heard him start to say “adult in the room,” before memories of Jimmy Butler apparently got the words stuck in his throat. But Brett, who appears to now be growing what could generously be described as a “pre-playoff beard,” seemed expressly non-committal when it came to defining the role Crawford would actually play on the team. (Glenn Robinson III could no doubt be heard chuckling off in the distance.)

My best guess? The team wants an insurance policy of some sort in case Shake gets brain freeze during his first taste of the playoffs, and they’re not totally convinced that Alec Burks’ offensive shenanigans will work against the highest-level competition, either. Why they think that a dude two years older than “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” is any safer a bet than either is sorta beyond me -- but then again, we’re talking about a team that not only signed Greg Monroe seconds under the wire for the 2019 playoffs, but actually started him in Game Three of the first round. It’s a surprising move, but hardly a shocking one. (By the way, in case you were wondering, I checked: Elton did not overlap with Crawford in Atlanta, missing him by a couple seasons. But you already know who did: Al Horford, who’s probably overjoyed to have someone else around to laugh at his Wayne’s World and Kid ‘n Play references.)

And as for Norvel? Well, he’d fallen even behind Kyle O’Quinn in the team’s rotation -- KOQ again got double-digit minutes against the Hawks, getting crushed by John Collins on the boards but drilling a couple nice jumpers over Collins on the other end. The Sixers clearly hope they can go back to staggering Horford’s and Embiid’s minutes more again soon, and even in emergency situations, they seem to prefer Mike Scott at center to having to survive with Pelle at this point. It’s tough, because you still believe in his athleticism and defensive potential -- but he was just out of time on this roster, and that wasn’t going to change before the playoffs. Hope his poor-man’s-Nerlens routine can earn him some minutes in Houston, and weep that he never got to experience his proper Process prime, alongside the likes of Ish Smith and Hollis Thompson. 

Anyway, reports say that Crawford will be joining the Sixers in Minnesota tonight -- presumably using old-school paper maps, not the newfangled GPS technology that apparently got Burks and GRIII lost for days on I-95 -- so hopefully he can impart some valuable lessons on the younger Sixers about how to win on the road by then. If “hit shots,” “play defense” and “actually try” are included in the first lesson plan, we might even have a shot at making it a season-high six Ws in a row before heading to Chicago on Thursday.