Jamal Crawford was the breakout star of the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
No, it wasn’t because the 44-year-old ‘J-Crossover’ returned to the court after last playing with the Brooklyn Nets in 2020. Instead, he quickly found his footing in the broadcasting world, took his opportunity, and ran with it.
Crawford replaced Dwyane Wade on the Tuesday edition of the Inside the NBA. And it apparently went so well that his TNT bosses gave him a bump to the big leagues, sitting in with Kevin Harlan and Reggie Miller in the network’s top broadcast booth throughout the playoffs.
It’s part of why Awful Announcing included Crawford in our list of rising sports media stars for 2024. But Crawford will have to make some noise as a rising star on another network, as he recently revealed to a fan on social media that he’ll be a “TV free agent” heading into the 2024-25 NBA season.
With TNT set to lose its stronghold on NBA rights following the season, Crawford would likely have to seek out other opportunities anyway. In any event, he gets a head start on free agency, being one of the hottest names out there for potential broadcasters in new iterations of booths on Amazon, NBC, or even ESPN.
Crawford said he’ll have to see where his TV journey takes him, but it’s undoubtedly clear that he wants to continue calling games, something he excelled at when given the opportunity in 2024.
“Definitely feel like I’ll be calling games though,” he writes.
When Awful Announcing recently predicted what the next iteration of the NBA on NBC may look like, it did so without the knowledge that Crawford would be a free agent. Crawford only revealed that he’d be a free agent earlier this week, seemingly hinting that his contract was not renewed.
But he’ll be a hot commodity, thanks to his insightful commentary and natural ability to connect with audiences. Crawford started doing game broadcasts for NBA League Pass alongside Quentin Richardson in November 2021.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.