After a fairly slow summer, in which their one major move was inking Marcus Smart to a new contract, the Boston Celtics figured to have their roster pretty much set. But then new broke that second-year guard Jabari Bird had been arrested on charges of domestic violence. In the event that Bird ends up being waived, the Celtics could have an open roster spot soon.
And they could reportedly use it on veteran ankle-breaker Jamal Crawford. According to Jared Weiss of The Athletic, the Celtics and Crawford have mutual interest, but the team hasn't made an offer. Per Weiss, who was speaking on a Celtics podcast, Crawford is eager to compete for a title. As transcribed by NESN:
"There is mutual interest between the Celtics and Crawford. That I do know. The Celtics didn't make an offer to him. He's been kind of waiting for the right situation to materialize. That's why he's holding out to training camp, basically. He wants to be in a position to win a championship. He wants to sign on with one of these title teams."
Obviously there are a lot of moving parts here and it could be a while before the Bird situation is resolved. However, assuming a roster spot opens up in Boston, it's easy to see why there would be mutual interest between Crawford and the team.
At 38 years old, Crawford is nearing the end of his career, and doesn't have many chances left to capture that elusive championship. While the Warriors are still the prohibitive favorite for this season, the Celtics should be right there with a strong chance to win the Eastern Conference and face them in the Finals.
From an actual basketball perspective, Crawford is clearly not the player he once was, but can still provide bursts of scoring once in a while. For a Celtics team that struggled offensively at times last season -- especially when Kyrie Irving was on the bench, and after he went down with a season-ending injury -- a player like Crawford makes sense. He wouldn't be expected to have a big role, but on nights where the bench was struggling to score, he could be used as a spark plug for the offense.
