Meet
Al Jefferson – 1/4 through the season
Posted by: Michael on December 6th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Big Al Stats… (for all those who want to trade him)
Assists: #10
Blocks: #24
Double-Doubles: #2
Efficiency Rating: #3
Rebounds: #4
Scoring: #4
Steals: #6
Turnovers: #22 (the lower the number the better, 22 is better than 1)
He is legitimately a top 5 center. He is our closest guy to All-Star level.
Good job Big Al on a nice start of a season, especially on last night’s outing. There are not very many Centers in the league right now who can do what Big Al can. (I still want to see more Al next to Favors combo)
Replies: 15
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15 Responses
Al isn’t great defensively, but he can be an offensive force, rebounds at a high rate, and has become a much more willing passer. I’m with you Michael. I also agree Favors needs more time.
Bottom line: I think Paul Millsap might need to be the guy to go. He has stretches of games, going back to last season, where he just goes on cruise control, and at times, you forget he’s even on the floor. Jefferson has his faults, but he brings certain things to the table that you can count on virtually every night. Can we say the same about Paul?
If Al would just NEVER take that little worthless turn around that he SAYS is his secret weapon, I would like him so much more. Also if he would just freaking defend the pick-n-roll!
Al’s not a top 5 center. He’s a top 5 offensive center. I like him and like his game sometimes, and if he were to dump the lead out of his shoes and play even the bare minimum amount of defense, he would be a great asset that I’d be happy to have, but until that point, he’s a liability.
@Andrew I’m with you. He’s a top 5 offensive center. He would be an all-star if he would stop taking so many jump shots and be more aggressive going toward the hoop. He’s a beast when he attacks the rim. He’s average when he’s 7 feet or more away from the basket. Defending the pick and roll would sure be nice too.
He’s a top 5 offensive center against bad teams, against better teams he’s a liability that the this Jazz team with no star players cannot afford. Al should only be the second best player on any team period. This team cannot afford its highest scoring player to score less points than he shoots up shots, especially if teams know how to attack him defensively. I like him but at this moment in time we can’t afford to pay him anywhere close to $15million when we don’t have a star player to compliment him with, and can’t afford one as long as he is here.
Big Al is shooting 80% ft’s? Wow that is pretty valuable for a big man except for the fact he never gets to the line. I’d say his only two weaknesses are getting to the line and his lateral quickness.
If Al could defend and learn to get fouled, he’d be an elite player. But he doesn’t / can’t and he’s not. It’s that simple.
Think of how some Centers you’re like ‘man I’m glad he’s down there defensively’. Al is not one of those, instead he’s a ‘I hope they don’t run a pick and roll against Al or drive the lane while he’s down there’ type of guy.
Pretty much all your stats are based on offense. Except blocks to a degree, and he’s ranked 24th in that as it is. And he’s probably the Center with the ball in his hands the most time out of the whole league, yet is just 10th in assists.
He’s good at getting a shot off, he’s good at defensive rebounds, and he’s good at not turning the ball over. That’s what he is. He’s also a bad defender and doesn’t get to the free throw line. And the biggest reason to trade Al is that he’s expendable. We have two #3 draft picks behind him in Favors and Kanter who probably have a higher ceiling if given development time. So that’s $15M you could use to upgrade another position to an elite player while maintaining the high level of play at Center. Of course, a trade that for that is difficult, but KOC/Lindsey should be working the phones to do just that.
There are few players that are both all-stars on the defensive and offensive end… Of coarse you have the elites that are. For example, Dirk was primarily offensive like Al. So what did Dallas do, they put a defensive all-star next to him. Hmm… good combo, maybe instead of getting rid of our best offensive player (I should say most consistent/reliable) we should put him next to great defensive players. I think that would be pretty good.
As far as defensive stats he is #6 is steals, tied for #2 in defensive boards and #24 in blocks. For steals and boards, he is up there with the best. I agree that against the pick and roll he isn’t getting it done, but, one-on-one post up he is pretty good defensively.
I guess I would rather package up some of our less talented expiring contracts for another great player. Not trading arguable the best on the Jazz to hopefully get something better.
I agree putting great defensive players next to Al would be a huge fix to the problem. In fact I argued that like crazy during the off season. The problem is that Corbin can’t comprehend this idea, so instead of playing Favors with Al, he puts Millsap in. So we have two great offensive players, but terrible defenders. Then he puts in Kanter and Favors, and our offense takes a dive.
Al Jefferson’s overall defense is at 37th %tile.He’s 63rd %tile defending post ups. He is awful defending PnR at 21st %tile. So you can say he is good against defending people posting up but he is not. Do not follow the narrative put out there by the people employed by the team.
Offensively he is shooting 48% as a center that is horrible. He is not top 20 Offensive Rating, Offensive Win Shares, TS%, EFG%. He gets paid with a top 20 contract. He only gives us offense correct? So if is offense is only average then what is he truly giving us? Not much. Monta Ellis was giving GSW 22 ppg last year and not much else. How are they going to replace that? Oh by giving it to people that score efficiently and get to the line. Which is exactly what they did.
What does Al give us that the two number three picks sitting behind him would not give us?
Is al getting big numbers? the answere is yes. is he our biggest threat? it depends on how you look at it. al is a black hole. i can’t even count how many times he has had double and even triple teams on him and he still gets up a shot. this is skill but with three guys on you that means two are open. this is where al kills the jazz. once al touches the ball the rest of the jazz might as well go to the other end of the court and wait for al to shoot then play defense.
Zones dont work in the NBA. When a team deliberately isolates Al on their offensive sets to beat us where is the value. When we have to put in our rookies to babysit AL on defense, why not just play them in the first place? Taking 20 shots to get 20 points is NOT dominating. He takes the most shots on this team. When the player that takes the most shots shoots below 1.00 the team loses. He is right on the 1.00 and where are we? .500 where were we last year? .500
Theres a reason Al’s not an allstar. He would be a a great contributer and worth 8-10 mil. NOT max. And to say there are not alot of allstars or max salary players that can play both sides, offense and defense? …bull!@#$%
Just a couple questions, are the stats you posted totals or averages?
if he is not scoring, does he still affect the game in a positive way for us? You are paying him “gamechanger” money, 15million should get you a great player, would anyone consider him a great player?
Anyone that is given 15-20 shots will get you 18 points a night, you would hope. I believe Kanter would. Favors would. And Millsap would. So what are we getting from jefferson and his 15 million price tag, that we wouldn’t get from Favors, Kanter or millsap?
Alot of things we complain about with Al you can’t really keep stats on. Its what the eyes see as you watch al that bug a lot of us, not the stats. How many times does he keep his arms down when someone drives the lane? How often is he late on rotations? How often does he watch someone get a lay up or dunk? How often does he let a pg or sg go right by him in pick n rolls? to all those questions, its quite often. Those are the things that bug us with Al.
Yeah, Al Jefferson does some things pretty well. But you have to realize, we’re pretty much at our ceiling with this Jefferson/Millsap-led team. A team that floats around .500, has an exciting run to land a No. 8, maybe No. 7 seed, and then gets bounced fairly easily in the first round of the playoffs. That’s about our maximum potential with Jefferson leading the way, and we will NEVER be better than that.
That’s not something I’m willing to settle for year in and year out as a Jazz fan. The future potential is much higher with the younger players, who need to develop but are having trouble developing the way they should due to a lack of playing time. And even if we traded Jefferson and Millsap now, before the deadline, I have a hard time believing this team couldn’t still contend for an 8-seed without them.
Not much more to say apart from agree with all the comments. michael you really walked into this one