RealGM

Who had the better NBA career?

Marbury had 11 real seasons, averaging 20/3/8 over 38.4 minutes a game, with slightly above average scoring efficiency. He made the all-star game twice and all-NBA twice.

Crawford had 18 meaningful seasons. During his 11 best seasons, he averaged 17/2.5/4 over 33.6 minutes a game, with slightly below average scoring efficiency.

It is a less facially objectionable comparison than my initial gut reaction, propelled by my personal affinity for Starbury. However, I still do not see it as especially close whether I would rather have eleven years of a good (but not at all great) playmaker than eighteen years of a functional relief scorer. And judging by their career earnings, front offices generally agree.

Steph for sure. Crawford was an exciting guy but largely a fairly bleh player outside of 2010.

You can't compare a bench player to an all-star, even if his career did derail.

Not looking closely, first glance response...

Wouldn't want to keep either on my roster long term. Both probably get paid more than they are worth. Marbury has some intangible issues.

But Marbury. He was overrated (massively overhyped by Slam). He was a poor defender. He wasn't, as I recall, always the best teammate. His playoff numbers look very poor relative to RS - there's some mitigation for it not all being prime stuff but even so. There's a possibility he didn't scale well as we didn't really see him much on good teams. Personally he was a little shoot-first for my taste.

So there's the caveats there. But 99-05, especially '05 he's productive. The surface level on-off is ... solid (if vacillating quite a lot), again with 05 looking strong). There's the caveats above but '05 could perhaps be a needle-mover for a good team. How many years of Crawford add up to '05 Marbury...

Haven't looked in detail but on the surface I'm not sure how much Crawford ever helps you win at a high level. Fwiw, depending somewhat on measure of choice, he doesn't look great in the playoffs either.

Jamal Crawford is the kind of guy when you watch his highlights you're like damn this dude must have been one of the greats. Then you actually watch him play and you realize he's probably up there as one of the most overrated players in the game.

Starbury easily. Talent wise it's like comparing Morant to Herro (I guess I'd take Morant over Marbury though he also played in a more favorable guard era).