Nearly two years after last playing in the NBA, Jordan Crawford made his biggest splash in basketball Friday, scoring 72 points in China to nearly double his stateside best.
But Crawford's performance, however impressive in the box score, reportedly was not enough to spark the Tianjin Ronggang Gold Lions to a win over the Sichuan Blue Whales.
The Gold Lions have struggled all season despite the presence of Crawford, a shooting guard whose NBA career spanned four teams and four seasons, ending in 2014 with the Golden State Warriors.
On Friday, Crawford shot 25-for-52 from the field, including 4-for-12 from 3-point range, and was 18-for-20 from the free throw line, according to sportando.com. He also grabbed 16 rebounds, but the Gold Lions lost 113-104 and fell to 5-23 in the Chinese Basketball Association.
Crawford, 27, played collegiately at Indiana and Xavier. He was drafted in 2010 by the New Jersey Nets, who selected him with one of the two first-round picks they acquired in the blockbuster 2008 trade that saw Jason Kidd and Devin Harris among eight players trading places, with Kidd going to the Nets and Harris to the Dallas Mavericks.
Crawford took to Twitter to celebrate his game.
You know if I miss it's something wrong wit the rim! https://t.co/lbobpPuqpW
— Jordan Crawford (@jcraw55) January 8, 2016Crawford's career high in the NBA was 41 points, for the Warriors in the final regular-season game of the 2013-14 season. He took his game to China in September 2014.