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Al’s D
Posted by: Jazzville on July 13th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Regarding some comments I saw on here earlier saying that Al Jefferson was actually not that bad of a defender, I just wanted to say that is laughable. Yes, he is decent at 1 on 1 defense on the block….decent. Every other aspect of defense is below average at best, and unbelievably bad at worst. Pick and roll defense….terrible, no effort, doesn’t slide his feet, lets guards split the defenders or turn the corner, and doesn’t recover at all. He plays no passing lanes. He is rarely in effective help side position, and even when he is, he either is easy to score on or gives up amazingly weak and 1 opportunities.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Al Jefferson. However, I think that the Jazz need to be an elite defensive team to compete, and as long as Al is your starter…that isn’t going to happen. There is a reason teams attack him all game long on defense. Sure he gets an occasional block, but really in the grand scheme of the overall defensive game, is that what is important? Also, he’s an average rebounder. So please explain to me how anyone can think he’s “actually not that bad on D” JRN and Chris I’m talking to you.
Replies: 21
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21 Responses
I agree with most of your points, but I would argue that Jefferson is an above average rebounder. He hits the boards pretty hard.
I’m sure the Jazz are considering trade options involving Jefferson, but I do believe he is a top 50 player in the league, and you don’t give up that kind of an asset without at least acquiring equal value in return. Losing players like Bell, Miles, or Howard without getting anything back, is still a case of addition by subtraction in by book. I don’t feel that way about Al though. The right deal has to come along, or you don’t pull the trigger.
What if the Jazz resigned Millsap, acquired Scola, and used the amnesty on Jefferson?
I’m not saying they should do it. I’m just thinking out loud.
Honestly, I will give to Enes the starter C spot, I really not a big fan on Al´s game style, I dont give a !@#$% if we trade to something better.
piston’s. Al, Kanter, Earl, 1st rd pick for Monroe, Stucky, and Villaneuva
That is an interesting trade proposal. As much as I like Kanter I REALLY REALLY REALLY like that trade. If we were to trade Kanter there are a few people I would trade him for and Monroe is one of them. I think we get a 1st round pick though honestly. We have to take Villaneuva horrible contract.
If you are that excited to get Monroe with that trade, don’t you think the Piston’s would be just a reluctant to let him go for that?
Only 50-50 chance a block ends up in your teams hands, so its really not that great, except for the intimidation factor of being humiliated for the blockee.
Trading Al means we want a return guy who can shoulder the equal load that he had as far as scoring when we need a bucket and clutch situations. That’s what you lose if you give up Big Al. So definitely for the right deal, pull the trigger. Trading him frees up 20-25% of our possessions every night to be distributed to other guys. Can we get more efficient possessions by doing so? Probably, as Al is average and doesn’t go to the line much. Also, I think Kanter as starting C makes us better defensively, or even Favors as C with Millsap makes us better defensively.
So, as I’ve been a proponent of for a long time, if you can get a wing or PG (or both) who is efficient offensively and plays good D, or even good draft picks, with which you would pick up the same thing, then trade him.
Here’s the question though: If you can’t get that, do you trade him at the deadline for whatever you can get, or let him go in Free Agency for nothing in return?
I think the pistons would take that trade. Everyone else in the league thinks Al is great even the Celtics fans wanted him back.
What if we traded Al for Iggy? I know this has been brought up but could you imagine the lineup of Burks/Hayward/Iggy/Williams/Favors? Oh my gosh the defense and the the fast breaks on that would be INSANE! It would be amazing to have that lineup.
Yeah Dallan I really think they would bite on that trade. Lets face it they are rebuilding more than we are. Add a pick to the trade. They keep their PG of the future BKNight, back him up with Earl, Keep the front steady with Big Al to mentor Drummond and shed all the contract baggage. Then get to decide what they want to do with Al to start the 2013 season.
Ive wanted Iggy for a long time. That lineup would be sick. I was thinking that once we picked up Marvin that it would be too crowded at SF for Iggy. But that defense, transition speed and scoring ability is crazy. Thats pretty much the roster style of the USA team right now with MEllo, Lebron, and Durant and iggy all on the court at the same time.
I bet we could even give team USA a run for its money with Burks/Hayward/Iggy/Williams/Favors
I seem to be public enemy #1 right now. I have been called out twice in the last week! You guys must think about me a lot. Dallan, Jazzville, sorry but I’m taken already and will also be gone for the next 2 years.
Al’s D is pretty bad. But not as bad as y’all are letting on. He is better than a decent on ball defender. And is the 7th best defensive rebounding starter in the league. 7 out of 60 is pretty good. There is no defending his P&R D but you guys kind of exaggerate it to a staggeringly dramatic rate. Almost teenage girl levels of drama.
Dont forget that he is elite offensively either. Its kind of a big plus to a team that cant score the ball when he goes to the bench.
Here are some more stats:
Here is our teams ranking through the C position last year.
Efficiency Difference(Efficiency-opposing efficiency)-6th
Efficiency-1st
FT%-5th
D Reb- 2nd
Personal Fouls-26th
Turnovers-1st
Reb-9th
Pts-1st
Now here is how the Center opposition rankings against the Jazz:
Pts-21st
Reb-23
Ast-23
Stl-27th
Blk-26th
Turnovers-21st
D Reb-21st
Efficiency Difference-25th
Here is the link: http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/teamstats/12/10/diffeff/1-1
This doesnt show anything regarding his P&R D but it shows that he is really good on ball Defender and also in a lot more areas than you guys give him credit for.
P.S. our frontcourt was really really good last year.
I would do that for Monroe. Easy. I dont think the pistons do though. Monroe is a franchise player. They see him the same as we see Derrick Favors. The only difference is that monroe is the better player out of the two right now. There is no way in heck they do that trade. I would love it though. I wish we traded up to get him instead of Hayward. I like GH but Monroe is and will be the better player out of the two for their whole careers. That draft class is pretty good so far. I think I take GH only 6th in a redraft as of right now. But I dont know much about Evan Turner. Never really watched him. But I have Wall, Cousins, Monroe, Favors, George, Hayward in that order. All 6 will be all-stars at some point. But like I said I will have to watch some tape on Turner before I add him into the equation.
I hate to disappoint you Dallan and Jazzville. There are plenty of fish in the sea… but I am not really into guys. You should try to find a new crush for a while. I hope I let you off easy enough.
Edit: we had a pretty good scoring bench so I withdraw my comment about it not scoring it with Al out. But he is definitely elite offensively.
Our shooting % dips way down without Al in. It goes from 47% to 43%.
Once again when you are on par with CJ Miles on offense you are not elite.
If his rebounding is so good why does it go up 10% when he is off the floor?
If you make someone an Iso player who is not an Iso player they are not going to do very good!! We suppressed the skills last year of Millsap,Harris,Hayward,Burks,Favors,Kanter and even Raja Freakin Bell. Why did we do this? For one person one person on the whole team! Oh and guess what this new SF we have does not do well with Iso sets either. We are doing this for a guy who takes a little over 18 shots a game to get 19 points!! That does not count th times he holds the ball so long everyone else has to throw up a prayer with 3-5 seconds on the clock
Stepping away from his defense for a minutes. Al needs to go to a team that plays Iso basketball or to a team that struggles for shooters. At the moment without a playmaker in the mould of Stockton OR Dwill the Jazz play goes through Jefferson at the expense of just about everyone else in the team.
Hayward is at his best when he gets to see the ball in his hands, but if the ball is going through Jefferson most of the time, his hands barely touch the ball. He then gets 2- 3 second looks after Al has exhausted all other options.
Favors is a player we all want to see on the floor but for this part of his career at least, he and Al like the same part of the floor offensively. Al rightly gets preference because he is more of a threat offensively currently. Until he is able to develop an offensive game that uses different parts of the floor than Al he won’t get many minutes with Al unless the Jazz are resorting to an Al, Paul and Derrick lineup which is not he answer for every game.
The only young player with any potential that isn’t greatly affected by Jefferson is Burks, largely because he doesn’t play many minutes with Jefferson and he doesn’t play within the system yet.
I havent seen you give a stat to back that up Dallan. It could be that the other teams starters have gone to the bench like Al did. Also Kanter and Favors are exceptional rebounders themselves. Al is just a more complete player than either of them right now.
Dallan that sounds like every other comment you have made for the last six months. I think its time for a change. But again no stats just a lot of biased opinion. How is Al’s offense on par with CJ miles when he scores 19 a game and is the 9th most efficient starter in the league. 3rd out of Centers. Are you still on the PPS kick? If so we should start Jeremy Evans at center. He has a good PPS. I love how you bash PER because it puts Evans as the third best player on the team but you love PPS which has him as the best player on the team.
His rebounding is good. I have given multiple sources of how good his rebounding is. You are just spewing some phantom stat that doesnt really apply. If you are the 7th best rebounder in the league it why does it matter that the bench had a better rebound rate. Al is playing against all the players you say are better than he is. Favors and Kanter played against people like Aaron Gray, Timofey Mozgov, and Darko Milicic. Why doesnt your beloved Millsap average more rebounds than Al does? They play the same minutes. Maybe the bench is better because Paul took a seat.
Frankly, you’re whole “Al Jefferson: the Root of All Evil” routine is getting old. He has some issues but grow up and stop blaming EVERY freakin problem the Jazz had on him. He was the least of our problems. Lets try getting some three point shooting then maybe we wont have to go to the post iso to get points. It will open up the paint for everyone. Maybe some perimeter D would be nice for a change.
@Steven
Hayward would best be utilized off the bench for that very reason. He was often the 4th best player in our starting lineup this year. Why in the world would we run our offense through the 4th best player in the starting lineup? Doesnt really make sense does it? Maybe in the future but definitely not now.
Offensively I would agree, but defensively he was a very necessary component when Al was on the floor. Last season with Al on the floor the team needed as many active defenders on the floor as possible so as to limit the damage that could be done when teams attacked Al’s pick and roll defense. If teams attacked Al and then switched it out wide the Jazz needed someone with Athleticism and length to be up to the task of nullifying that threat.
Running most plays through Al at the expense of others within the team makes the team predictable. Better teams counteract that. A more even distribution of the ball would allow players such as Hayward better looks at the basket. When he gets more time on the ball he makes more of it. As does just about any player on the team. Is that because the player is better with more time on the clock or because the opposition defense is scrambling and guessing what may or may not happen?
If the play goes through Al and he holds onto the ball for 3 – 4 – 5 seconds while he gathers himself and decides what to do with it the defense has time to set itself up and limit his play options and those of his teammates around him. Lesser defensive teams don’t do such a good job at this and he hits above 50% against those teams. Better defensive teams hold him to less than 50%, quite often considerably less than 50% and do a better job at limiting his teammates because he holds on to the ball too long. On average he is a slightly below 50% shooter, but its against lesser teams that he props that shooting percentage up. Against teams such as the Lakers he was a liability last season. Shooting up shot after shot and missing most of the time. Two games against the Lakers with Al in the team, the team lost embarrassingly. One game against the Lakers when he was unavailable because he was at a funeral Favors put up average shooting numbers but did play good defense and the team won a close game. Favors doesn’t have the offensive game of Al, he’s still learning that part of the game, but his defensive game makes up for his lack of scoring, he is a good pick and roll defender and active when grabbing rebounds. This makes him valuable when he isn’t having a good shooting night. When Al is having a bad shooting night, he goes from being useful to a liability. He can block, but a block can just as easily end up in the opposition hands as it can land in the hands of your teammates. He can rebound but he saves most of his energy for his offensive game. In less minutes on the floor Favors can give him a run for his money when it comes to defensive rebounds. Al’s pick and roll defense is horrible, it leaves a target for the opposition and pulls his teammates all over the floor to cover his sorry ass. Favors to me is a not a complete player yet, I’m not advocating for him to take Al’s place by himself just yet. I’m not convinced that he could put up Al’s shooting numbers. However I’m not sure that he would need to put those numbers up yet either. His defense is so much more sound than Al’s he could score 12 – 14 to Al’s 19 and the other points could be made up elsewhere in the team, which they might just be able to do if the team wasn’t so offensively predictable and they had more time on the ball to do their thing instead of whatever option is allocated to them by the defense.
1) Let me break it down for you then JRN. When he is on the floor we grab 30% of offensive rebounds. When he is off the floor we grab 37% of offensive rebounds. When he is on the floor we grab 70% of defensive rebounds. When he is off the floor we grab 74% of defensive rebounds. So when you add that together it comes out to 11% which is a large amount. You keep saying he is a top 7 in rebounding but the TRB% which is the rebounds he could have grabbed in the minutes he was on the floor his rating is 16.1 which is ranked 56th. Compare that to Kanter at 18.3 which is 23rd and Favors 17.7 at 32nd. You wanted to bring up Millsap and yes offensive rebounding we get more but defensive he is even we do not lose rebounds with him on the court.
2)Mozgov was the starter until Mcgee came. Gray is the starter at C for Toronto. Milicic never played. So what is your point?? Just like Steven said when we played against the Lakers we were blown out with Al but when he was not playing our 19 year old rookie was showing Bynum how to do it.
3)I do think that Jeremy Evans needs more time to show what he has. Yes he is the top of the PPS but he is not the best player.I did not say just because you are the top you are the best. You are the one that stated because he was great at PER so he is a top 15 player. My point with the PPS is you say Al is AMAZING and ELITE offensively but yet on an offensive metric he is average on it. In PPS he is at 1.12 which is ranked 263rd. How about EFG%? 49% that is 184th in the league. What about TSP% he is at 52% that is 215th in the league. All of those are offensive metrics and he is not where near the top. He should be as well because he is a CENTER so his butt is in the lane.
4) Since everyone likes to use Al blocks as a reason for good defense but do not understand that does not mean great defense he blocks 3.9% of two point attempts while he is on the floor playing 35-38 mins a game. To put that into comparison Favors blocks 3.8% and he gets about 10-14 mins a game. That is a lot more possessions for Al to block. So he is not even that great getting blocks that you all love to see.
5)Three point shooting will improve when they do not get the ball back with 3-5 seconds on the clock. If Al continues to not pass out with more time on the clock and the shots continue to have to be thrown up then our 3 point shooting will not improve.
6)What problems on the floor and frankly off the floor that we had can not directly be brought back to Al? More then not they can be brought back to his style of play and what the coaches had to do to make him effective.
Thank you Dan. REBOUNDING THE FREAKIN BALL NEVER EQUALS GOOD DEFENSE!!! AND GUESS WHAT? BLOCKING THE BALL NEVER EQUALS GOOD DEFENSE!!!
Jefferson uses 48% of his possession on post ups and ranks 19th in the NBA in points per possession on his post ups. 17% of the Jazz offense this year was spot ups and the Jazz were the 10th best spot up team in the NBA. Al had 11 and one’s this year off 549 post up chances. This is terrible and like everyone sane has been saying, this type of offense (even though Al can get a shot off, which is rare for a big) he kills the jazz system. Kills it.
Only 8% of Al’s possessions came off the pick and roll this year when he was the roll man but he ranked 65th in the NBA hitting on 44 of 90 shots. Meaning, he doesn’t use the ball as effectively as he could because he sits on it all day.
Al doesn’t finish off the offensive rebound well, making just 43 of 96 shots off the offensive rebound ranking him 132 in the NBA.
However, since being in Utah he has improved in almost every statistical category especially regarding turnovers. BUT, he’s still well below average with on the floor efficiency. Why?
Turning the focus to defense. He ranks 199th defensively and it is almost entirely due to isolations and spot up. The pick and roll man defense doesn’t come out as badly as it felt during the season, but he is still on average, a below-averge defender.
Unless you have a transcendent superstar, you HAVE to be an elite defensive team. The utah jazz WILL NEVER be an elite defensive team with al jefferson getting 30 min plus a night on the floor. Never.
I like Al, he can get a shot off, has become a good passer and does not turn the ball over. However, there are many good players out there that you don’t go get because it isn’t what your system needs or can handle. He’s a perfect example, which is why the jazz will not be re-signing him and if they do it will be for a bench role, which I think is where he belongs due to his domination against secondary players, and sub-par at best play against starters.
I used to like the al for iggy trade, but how would that work now that we have two legit starting wings in Williams and Hayward? I don’t see it working at all. I’d like an elite pg, but the jazz have traded for Mo and he will be the pg at least for the next few years. Not sure what the answer is.
I’ll paste a bit from JRN’s earlier post.
Now here is how the Center opposition rankings against the Jazz:
Pts-21st
Reb-23
Ast-23
Stl-27th
Blk-26th
Turnovers-21st
D Reb-21st
Efficiency Difference-25th
That’s exceptional. As we’ve mentioned before, Al did a very good job last year of shutting down his man (something which he did not do in years prior to last year). This does not excuse the porous other facets to his defense, but I’m not sure why people keep trying to say he ’s awful in every way defensively.