Jamal Crawford may have retired as one of the best Sixth Men of all time, but that doesn't mean that he welcomed that shift to the bench instantaneously. NBA players are uber competitive, and sometimes they view moving to the bench as a slight, as that implies that they're not good enough to start for their respective teams. But in the end, Crawford learned to embrace his role as his team's first guy off the bench, and a change in mindset helped him become one of, if not the greatest Sixth Man of all time.

Speaking on Kevin Garnett's KG Certified podcast on SHOWTIME Basketball, Crawford revealed how he trained his mind to get used to coming off the pine and how it paid off for him big time during his 30s.

“Going into the summer, I'm like, ‘Yo, when we playing pickup, I'm not going to play first.' I need to watch the game first, I need to get used to coming off the bench. I had to trick my mind from ‘Nah, you ain’t as good’ to ‘Now you’re Superman. Let them have their show, Superman’s coming in,'” Crawford said.

That is an admirable mindset, and one that Jamal Crawford applied to his game, especially during his stint with the Los Angeles Clippers. With the Clippers, Crawford ran the show for the team while the likes of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin took their breathers. Coming up against a few overmatched bench units, the explosive scoring guard elicited fear out of opposing bench guards who feared that they'll be on the wrong end of a few J-Crossover highlights.

“It comes to the point, Ticket, where he's not even worried about stopping me no more. He don't even want to be embarrassed,” Crawford added. “I'm coming in with that mindset. My coaches freed me. Doc [Rivers] said ‘Yo, go get it.'”

That is a mindset all microwave scorers off the bench must adapt for them to flourish. As Jamal Crawford showed, being the Sixth Man isn't a slight, but rather is an opportunity to show out — which Crawford did en route to finishing his career with the second-most points off the bench in NBA history behind Lou Williams, another two-time Sixth Man of The Year winner for the Clippers.