In this episode of the Draymond Green Show, host Draymond Green interviews NBA veteran Jamal Crawford. Crawford recounts his tumultuous path from an ineligible high‑school player to a Michigan walk‑on, detailing how he was suspended for an amateurism violation, later reinstated, and then entered the NBA draft, unexpectedly becoming a lottery pick within two days. The conversation shifts to the modern NIL landscape, with Crawford arguing that earlier NIL opportunities would have kept many athletes in school longer and reduced financial pressure on families, while also acknowledging potential downsides. He also shares a boast that during his time at Michigan he was more popular on campus than future NFL star Tom Brady, highlighting his student‑section fame and the "Crawford Craze" headband. Throughout, the tone remains conversational and reflective, with Crawford expressing enthusiasm for the changes in college athletics and nostalgia for his college experience.
Chapters
You leave Seattle, you go, not even gonna mention the school you go to. That's a whole nother story.
Hold up, hold up. Matter of fact, I think I owe you a few hundred from a football bet years ago, but that's not important right now. How you not gonna mention Michigan? You gotta mention, or you ain't gotta say the word if you don't want to. Say maybe something.
Michigan State.
Michigan State. See, I got love for Big Horn and Mateen. When I see Mateen and Mopey, the Flintstones, I acknowledge that. You ain't gonna acknowledge the—
As I got so much love for you and so much love for Jalen and C Webb. There you go. Manny Harris, Deshaun Sims, the list goes on and on. It's nothing but love for you guys. But the school, oh my God, man, it hurts.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
You go off to school and right off the bat you get suspended.
Yeah.
What was your suspension for? And what was your mindset once you received that suspension?
So, Dray, coming up, I wasn't like, nobody ever heard about me until I was 16. So I was the kid, you know how they be like, man, there's a kid right now busting his ass at a playground. They gotta kick him off the court, working on his game and you here sleeping, whatever, you know, a coach try to use as motivation. I was that kid. So nobody knew about me till I was 16. I was still working on my game. I was in the backyard. I was like really getting better. And so once I jumped on the scene and I had a lot of making up to do. I was ineligible my freshman year of high school. I was ineligible my sophomore year of high school. I was ineligible my junior year of high school. I made varsity as a freshman. Doing the wrong things, being with the wrong, you know, crowd and all that. But as fate would have it, I started getting help when I moved back to Seattle from LA. And that was with tutors. With clothes, like we don't come from nothing. But the help I was getting wasn't from like a booster, it wasn't from alumni, it wasn't from an AAU coach. I wasn't even on the scene like that. And when I went to Michigan, proudly, when I went to Michigan, they said I broke a law of amateurism. And I had never even heard of that. I'm like, well, hold on, this guy doesn't fit into any one of those modes. He wasn't just giving me money saying, here, go flash and do what you wanna do. Like this is stuff that's helping me be a productive young man. And so they, I got suspended. They actually dug into that, saw I did nothing wrong, and I got reinstated. But at that point I put my name in the draft. And when I put my name in the draft, honestly, I wasn't even putting it in to leave. I just wanted to see, go through the process. 'Cause I thought I would leave the next year. Like, let me just go through it and see what I'm gonna be up against. At that time at camp, dudes was still playing. Like the top dudes was still playing.
I see.
So I went there and killed camp. And that's when my name went from, Second round and not being drafted to now I'm a lottery pick in 2 days.
Wow.
In 2 days, right? And so from there, it was so cold. I was on such like a roll that they was like, look, teams like, you ain't even gotta work out when you come here. Just come talk to us. I'm like, yeah. Joe D in Detroit, he was the one I went and saw. Mark Cuban in Dallas. Like I was going different places and they were just saying, look, just talk to us and we'll see what happens. But yeah, that's what happened. Like it was a dude that had nothing to do with basketball. To this day, he has nothing to do with basketball. And they kicked me off for that.
That's incredible, man. And now, you know, you look at, you know, the landscape, these kids getting rich nowadays, which I absolutely love. Like you got guys—
Yes.
Literally going back to school, making $2 and $3 million, which I think is incredible. But what do you actually think of the NIL? Because, you know, as good as it is for a kid to go make $2, $3 million and still be in college, There are some downsides of it as well. You know, and I don't mean downsides as far as like kids having money and they can't manage it. People have money and can't manage it every day. So don't give me the, they're in trouble because they can't manage money. That's bullshit. But you know, where you can't really go for the A-list type companies because the school has a deal with them and those different things. What do you make of the NIL nowadays, especially as someone who essentially I mean, you didn't even get knocked for you selling your likeness, but yet someone that got knocked and faced the NCAA in a different way than most do.
You know what's crazy, Dave? If the NIL was around 20, 25, 30 years ago, think about how many kids would've stayed in school. Think about how much more money the NCAA would've made because now you're removing the pressure of this kid like, damn, I gotta help provide for my family. Damn, I can't even get extra money to go to a movie because that's against the rules. I ain't got it. Like, so if they remove— if it's handled right, they have the right, you know, parents and supports that surround them, it's handled right, you can get that money and still not be in a rush to go to the league. You cannot be in a rush to make some of the decisions that are made. Like, you can set up shop, and depending on how much it is, you may go set up a small business. You can be able to set up stuff later if basketball doesn't work out, but you're not— That pressure of— "My mom's lights may get cut off." Like, we gotta pick between paying the light bill, eating, and my sister's school tuition, whatever it might be. It removes that pressure. So I think if NIL was in, a lot of people, Chris Webber, those guys would've left early. You know what I'm saying?
Facts.
People that come from hard beginnings. So I like it. And like you said, there's some downsides to it too. But like anything, it's how do you navigate what it is? Even the NBA, right, in sports. We all know if we weren't in the position that we were in and some things that we may have done happened, it wouldn't be a story. But since we're in this position and we have this light on us, it's gonna be talked about. So it's just about how you navigate it, how you handle it. And there's no perfect answer, but I would've loved to seen it. Man, I had my own student section at Michigan. The crowd had their student section, our school, and I had a headband called the Crawford Craze. At that time, True story, I'm not saying this to brag. I was at school with Tom Brady. I was more popular on campus than he was at that time. 'Cause Drew Hansen, the quarterback, was there and he was kinda like the guy. So yeah, it's just crazy to see how things have formulated.
That's crazy. I think just like sharing a campus with Tom Brady and being big, like, that's mind-blowing in itself. What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to The Volume's YouTube channel below. So you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. Thank you.
