Jamal Crawford aka Jcrossover is one of the most skilled and versatile basketball players that you will ever see grace the court. He was the 8th pick in the 2000 NBA Draft and was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers but then traded to the Chicago Bulls with MJ’s legacy still looming in the air. Michael was a fan of the Bulls pickup and called his trainer Tim Grover to schedule Jamal for a workout one day and the rest was legendary!
“It was unbelievable because the first morning my dad told me during the draft process. He was like ‘Michael Jordan likes your game’. This was before social media. I’m like ‘dad there’s like no way you could notice’. It’s like what’s the chances of my dad even knowing something about Michael Jordan.”
-Jamal Crawford
While speaking with Hoopswave, Jcrossover detailed his relationship with MJ and how they began to work out at 6 am just to take over pick-up games.
“So I drove down to the gym, and I get there at seven o’clock. It’s just him and MJ in there. MJ has been there since 6:00 a.m. and he was doing his defensive slide drills by himself. He was 40 years old so instantly the work ethic stuck with me. I’m like okay it’s no accident why he is who he is. He wouldn’t play a pickup game until I got there because I would help the Bulls and had to drive down there, and he wouldn’t play until I got there. We never lost in two years, and we played against everybody.”
-Jamal Crawford
Jamal Crawford Reflects On Meeting Michael Jordan
JC was also blessed with the opportunity to partake in MJ’s infamous commercial where MJ is going 1v1 with the younger version of himself. Jamal was selected to play the younger version of MJ.
Jamal returned to the NBA on August 4th after a year-long hiatus. Within his first five minutes of play, he scored 3 points and dished out three assists BUT his return was short-lived due to a hamstring injury minutes into him checking into the game. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we see of JC and we are wishing him a speedy recovery!
