Drew Crawford will play in Italy again
Crawford is a player for Dolomiti Energia Trentino
Andrew Eugene Crawford is a player of Dolomiti Energia Trentino: the bianconeri thus complete their roster for the 2022-23 season with the 1990-born American forward, MVP of the Serie A championship and the Final Eight of the Coppa Italia in the 2018-19 season when he wore Cremona’s jersey. Crawford, currently attached to Maccabi Tel Aviv for this preseason period, will honor the agreement signed in recent days with the prestigious Israeli club until the tournament in Athens, and will then arrive in Trento the week before the start of the Serie A championship.
“Drew,” this is the name by which he is known to European basketball fans, was born in Naperville, Illinois, on Oct. 18, 32 years ago, and is an absolutely valuable and experienced player in the major European leagues. After finishing his five years of college at Northwestern University (one of which he spent away from the court due to a shoulder injury) with a 15.7-point, 6.3-rebound average season, Crawford made his “pro” debut in the G-League, where he averaged 16.0 points with the Birmingham Squadron. In 2015-16 his first overseas experience in Israel, defending the colors of Bnei Herzeliya (15.8 points and 4.9 rebounds per game): the following season he was in Germany, at Ludwigsburg, where he contributed an average of 9.1 points in 44 appearances between the German league and BCL, a cup in which he reached the quarterfinals. In the summer of 2017 he decided to return to Israel, this time to Maccabi Rishon LeZion, with which he starred in another excellent season of 16.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per night. Performances that earned him the call of Vanoli Cremona: under the orders of coach Meo Sacchetti Crawford plays a stellar season in which, with 17.5 points per night, he is the absolute protagonist of the Italian championship (winning the MVP title of the regular season and reaching the Scudetto semifinals) and of the Italian Cup, which he wins by also getting the award of MVP of the Final Eight in Florence.
The son of NBA great referee Dan, Crawford in Italy left his mark not only in Cremona, but also in Milan, where he signed in February 2020 playing 7 Euroleague games after a brief stint at Gaziantep in Turkey; and in Brescia, where in 2020-21 he scored in double-figure averages in Serie A and debuted in the EuroCup with 12.1 points per game in 9 appearances.
Last year Drew represented Andorra, Dolomiti Energia’s two-time opponent in cup challenges: the U.S. forward finished the season averaging 9.2 points in an impressive 51 official games, in which he helped the Andorrans reach the EuroCup semifinals.
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