VYPE EXCLUSIVE
Liver disease, hospital stays not slowing down Humble’s Lair Crawford
Mar 29, 2019, 2:57 pm
Originally Appeared on Vype
HOUSTON – A few minutes into the interview, I finally asked the question I had wanted the answer to before I even dialed the number.
"Was there ever a point during the season where you thought you needed to hand the team over to your assistant coach for an extended amount of time?"
The phone line went silent for a couple of seconds.
"Yes" was the firm answer back from the other end of the line.
The voice delivering it was Humble boys basketball coach Lair Crawford, who led the Wildcats to the program's 26th-straight playoff berth this past season, and found out in September he had liver disease and needed a transplant if he didn't get better.
Despite adhering to the doctor's orders of a low-salt diet, no drinking, exercising and generally not putting anything bad into his body, Crawford's liver continued to get worse as the months progressed.
In December, it landed him in the hospital for a week, during which he missed one game.
Then in January, another week.
This time missing a pair of games in the midst of District 22-6A play.
"It was stressful," Crawford said. "I'm sure it was a distraction on the kids because I didn't tell them exactly what was going on at the time. They fought through it. We talk about it all the time, this isn't my team or coach's team. This is you all's team."
During his weeklong absences, longtime assistant coach Leon Morris Jr. took care of the day-to-day operations of running practice and coaching the games he missed.
"That's another thing that helped get me through this," Crawford said about Morris. "If I had a new assistant or somebody I barely knew it would have been a lot more stressful on me. Because I would have felt like I don't know if he can handle it, I need to be there. Leon was great.
"He just took it and ran. He's proven he's ready to be a head coach."
While he was in the hospital, Crawford said Morris would come up to his room to talk basketball. The 10th-year Humble coach unable to be with is guys watched a lot of film to help while he was out.
During the games he missed, Crawford said he would follow the team's Twitter feed for score updates, which were being posted by a parent.
"Everybody was like you need to rest and take care of yourself but this is in some ways our life," he said. "Especially during the season you can't just turn it off."
It was during the January stay in the hospital that Crawford contemplated stepping back for the rest of the season.
The veteran coach ran the idea past his wife.
"She told me I was full of it," Crawford said with a laugh.
Then he knew he needed to talk to Humble ISD Athletic Director Troy Kite, who used to be the head boys basketball coach at Humble High School before moving into administration.
"He basically said no," Crawford said not divulging into the entire conversation.
Kite worked with Crawford during his time in the hospital, easing his mind about the days of worked missed and even helping out during practices at times.
"He has been amazing," Crawford said about Kite. "I can't think of a better person to work for. He's been there with me every step. Worked some things out here and helped so much. He's made it a lot less stressful as far as worrying about my job and things."
Crawford returned after the hospital stay in January to the team for the remainder of the season, which included the program's first-ever playoff berth as a Class 6A program.
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Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.
Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.
General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.
Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.
“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”
But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.
“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”
Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.
Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.
“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”
In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.
Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.
“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”
Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.
Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.
“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”