Aaron Afflalo, Jordan Crawford - Players expected to excel in next NBA season: Part 2
Aaron Afflalo:
Aaron Afflalo was an invisible entity in his first two years of his NBA career. Selected by Detroit Pistons in the 2007 draft, he was only used as a backup player.
He gained reputation after he was traded to Denver Nuggets in 2009. On 25th January, 2010 in a game against Charlotte Bobcats, he scored magnificent six three-pointers. Then later in the season, he single handedly won
the game for Denver when he scored nineteen points in the last quarter to stun Dallas Mavericks. That was the performance that boosted his fame in NBA.
His ability to shoot three pointers is what makes him such a deadly player. He has been used in the starting role for last two seasons and his stats are improving at an outstanding rate. His average last season was career high
12.6 points per game along with 3.6 rebounds.
With J.R Smith and Wilson Chandler both stuck in China until March, this season, he is likely going to get much more touches on the ball and his stats are definitely going to climb. And if he manages to perform in the absence of
those two Nuggets players, he will concrete his place in the team. Afflalo is amongst the rare players who may end up benefiting from the lockout, or by degrees when it comes to stats production.
Jordan Crawford:
Not much hype was created around Jordan when he was taken 27th in the 2010 NBA draft.
He was selected by Atlanta Hawks and had a pretty ordinary rookie season. Jordan featured in 16 games and only managed to end up with an average of almost 4 points per game. Consequently the lean big was traded to Washington Wizards
in the mid of the season.
I am sure Wizards did not know then what a scoring machine they had acquired in the form of Jordan.
On 8th March, in a game against Milwaukee Bucks, he scored his career high 22 points and just in a week’s time, beat his high score by scoring 27 points in a loss against Chicago Bulls.
On 30th March, he again beat his previous high score by putting up mammoth 39 points in a game against Miami Heat. He ended the season with an average of 16.3 points per game which was a huge jump from his last season.
Now that he has proved himself as a solid player, I am sure he will be given more time in the court this season. I won’t be surprised if he ends this season with an average of more than 20 points because last season though he was
performing consistently, but only was played for 15-20 minutes. This season Washington Wizards for sure will use him for more time.
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