Ladies and gentlemen, your starting shooting guard for the Los Angeles Clippers, and the only man to ever win the 6th man of the year award while playing for the Hawks: Jamal Crawford!     

     A tall thin man in a burgundy sports jacket, white shirt, and matching burgundy bow tie steps up to a microphone on an empty stage. The mic feeds back when he attempts to speak into it; he jerks back awkwardly before steadying himself.

"This summer was actually the first summer I worked on my game. I usually just play off of raw talent."

     The only sounds in an empty auditorium are of the crickets outside.

"I've never actually been drilled before. Seriously. I told Blake that, and he couldn't believe it."

     A wind whistles faintly through the far off exit door. 

"Anybody?"

      Silence.

"We have a great coaching staff...an organization that's committed to winning..."

      The sound of muffled laughter can be heard coming from the parking lot.

This seems like how you'd shoot this thing

     It appears that performance artist Jamal Crawford's recent attempts to amuse a mass audience have once again fallen mostly on deaf ears. Perhaps, the world simply isn't ready for the absurd humorist/NBA athlete combination. For years Mr. Crawford kept his dual occupation a secret, then in 2008 he let Dime Magazine in on the joke.
     The cat was out of the bag, but no one seemed to care. The reprisal he had feared never came. Neither his teammates nor the league at large seemed to mind that Jamal was taking his summers off to pursue his love of comedy.
     "Jamal's very hard working" an insider told Basketbawful reporters on condition of anonymity. "I can't comment on how much he works on basketball in the off-season, but I can tell you that he is extremely dedicated to his own idiosyncratic and somewhat inscrutable method of comedy."

What a dedicated comic looks like

     The story that Jamal doesn't practice shooting was first reported by Helene Elliott of the LA Times. Since then, it's been picked up by USA Today, CBS Sports, and sundry blogs. This response however, has failed to satisfy the gag's creator.  When asked how Jamal was perceiving the reaction to his latest comedic endeavor, the source added that the lukewarm response has wounded Jamal's sensitive artistic temperament.

I think he was really hoping that it'd be a bigger deal. As a player who's spent most of his career in the wake of the infamous "practice" press conference, Jamal wanted to create a living homage to that iconic moment while crafting his own statement on the role of cognitive bias within the spectator athlete relationship in post-industrial society. By refusing to acknowledge that he's joking, the onus of interpretation is left to the audience. For the moment, the audience is not rising to the challenge. It's kinda like the reaction to that film with Joaquin Phoenix, I'm Still Here, which didn't garner a lot of accolades or box office but may have contained some of the finest acting of his career. 

     While at Michigan, Jamal studied under Dr. Dummkopf von Ausfahrt, a renowned comic theorist. He absorbed influences from the dadaists and was exposed to the plays of the Theater of the Absurd, such as Ionesco's Rhinocéros, which was said to have had a profound effect on his world view.

Poster from Crawford's dorm room

     Dr. Ausfahrt is an outspoken proponent of "anti-humor" and his athletic disciple has been known to echo his opinions in interviews.

BDL: I read that you're a comedian. What's the best joke you can tell me that's PG-13 rated?

Crawford: Best joke? See I'm not good at just saying jokes, I'm just funny.

     Diogenes of Sinope was a founding father of cynicism in Ancient Greece. He used to harass Plato and masturbate in public until eventually he was shanghaied by some pirates. He ended up living his final days in Corinth, where he allegedly made fun of Alexander the Great. The friend concluded wistfully:

Empires and shooting efficiency stats fade away like the stars at dawn. Comedy is forever... or at the very least it lasts a week or so. We're talking a minimum of four to five days here.    

Diogenes momentarily not playing with his penis