Crawford, 42, retires, pens his ‘goodbye’ to NBA

Jamal Crawford announced on Twitter Monday that his 20-year NBA career had come to a close.

“Goodbye to the game, all the spoils the adrenaline rush,” Crawford wrote. “Thank you basketball, I owe you everything.”

Crawford played for nine teams across his 20-year NBA career, establishing himself as one of the league’s elite bench scorers by sharing the record — along with Lou Williams — of winning three Sixth Man of the Year awards.

A dynamic ball handler and scorer, Crawford, who finishes his career ranking 19th in NBA history with 1,327 games and with a career scoring average of 14.6 points per game, was a popular and well-liked player among fans and peers alike. He was awarded the league’s Twyman Stokes Teammate of the Year award in 2018. Crawford also led a wave of Seattle-area players into the NBA, a group that includes Zach LaVine and Dejounte Murray, among others.

Crawford, 42, also became the oldest player to score 50 points in a game when he scored 51 for the Phoenix Suns in April 2019.

He then played one game during the bubble at the Walt Disney World Resort for the Brooklyn Nets, making him the eighth player to play 20 NBA seasons. He did not appear in a single game in either of the past two seasons.