Jamal Crawford spent 20 years in the NBA and picked up three Sixth Man of the Year awards along the way. Now the veteran guard is walking away from head coaching interviews for a reason most front offices rarely encounter. On the Cousins podcast with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, Crawford revealed a decision he had never shared publicly.
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“I literally turned down three NBA jobs this summer,” Crawford said on the Cousins with Vince Carter & Tracy McGrady YouTube show. “My son made USA. So, we’re in Turkey, and I got three offers, between assistants and actually going through the process of being a head coach for one of them this summer. And I was like, nah, just the timing, because he is going through his journey.”
The statement was made in the context of talking about his son J.J. Crawford, who is the No. 1 recruit in the 2029 class and made it to the U17 roster of Team USA, which went on tour to Turkey in the summer when Crawford received the three offers.
J.J. just completed his freshman year playing for Rainier Beach High School of Seattle, where he averaged 19 points, four rebounds and four assists, helping his team finish the season with a 29-1 record winning the Washington Class 3A State championship. J.J. helped Team USA win gold at the FIBA U17 World Cup in Istanbul. The reason for that is related to why Crawford refused to take up a position at the university a few weeks earlier for a very similar reason.
The head coach of Kentucky, Mark Pope, was trying to convince Crawford to come work for him as an assistant, but Crawford refused because of his obligations to NBA on NBC.
The Kentucky decision showed Crawford was already choosing structure over opportunity months before the three NBA offers came in during the Turkey trip. His NBC deal still has two years remaining, and he has said those obligations take priority right now. That same reasoning is what leads Crawford to talk about his coaching future as a matter of when, not if.
“One day? 100% I know I’m going to be an NBA coach one day. And I’ve never said that publicly. I just know it. I’m gonna tell y’all this because y’all family, we cousins. And I ain’t told anybody this,” Crawford said, before adding, “I know 100% once he goes through high school I’ll be an NBA coach. No doubt about it. So he has three more years of high school, and then after that I have zero doubt I’ll be a head coach in the NBA.”
Crawford kept the identities of the three franchises private, saying only that the mix included assistant roles and one formal head coaching interview. That discretion tracks with how he has handled his other commitments, staying visibly loyal to both the NBC broadcast team and his son’s development.
For now, Crawford continues splitting time between the NBC booth, his AAU coaching duties, and his assistant role at Rainier Beach, all while J.J. builds a résumé that already includes a national freshman of the year award. Three more high school seasons stand between Crawford and the sideline job he insists is coming.