Jefferson to Jazz Deal is Done

[BballTim]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

[BballTim]

Al Jefferson is a 50% shooter from the post.  That means he is no better than a 33% 3 point chucker like Antoine Walker.   What is worse is that a 3 point chucker can get easy shots in flow of an offense and at PF can spread floor. 

You have to work the ball into Al which means a passer working hard to get ball into post, 3 guys standing around, seconds off shot clock etc.

When you consider that against serious competition in big games (which have been few and far between in Boston and Minny) his ability to score in post drops dramatically..... his utility is not that great.

He would be a great 6th man but unfortunately he is paid like a star.   Factor in his short size, his [pee] poor defense, his injury history, his off court drinking and you have an overrated stat stuffer who contributes little to winning basketball at NBA level.

   First of all Al shoots about 64% from the post, not 50%. Second of all, are you seriously trying to claim that good post scorers are of little value in the playoffs? And that part about Al's production dropping off against better competition? Do you have proof of this?

[Fafnir]

If you read the post he was responding to you would see he was only saying there is value to an inside player.  Pablo apparently doesn't understand why a post game is important to a basetkabll team.  He wasn't saying Al was as good as McHale, only that they are both post scorers and are valuable.

And last time I checked, there was a world of difference between McHale and almost everyone who ever played PF, so that's not much of a slight on Al.  He also has time to develop still.  I'm sure he wishes he played with players of the caliber of Bird, Parish, and DJ.  I'm sure he'd shoot a better percentage.

Why do you assume I didn't read the post? That is one of my big pet peeves.

McHale was a post threat of another degree than Big Al. To posit McHale for Big Al skews the debate.

[Snakehead]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

TP for Tim.  Great numbers there.  People don't use common sense when it comes to bigs and how their numbers are affected by the players they play with, especially in regards to effeciency.  When post scorers like Big Al get in more situations where they are covered by a single man or are open and not covered, their shooting percentages will improve greatly.  They can have a hard time when a defense can double or solely focus on them.

Al is a good player himself, but I think he will benefit in a huge way from playing with better players.  Your numbers show that, and I'm sure they will improve even more in Utah with a great PG who can score with the best of them and set him up for easy scores with great passes.

If you read the post he was responding to you would see he was only saying there is value to an inside player.  Pablo apparently doesn't understand why a post game is important to a basetkabll team.  He wasn't saying Al was as good as McHale, only that they are both post scorers and are valuable.

And last time I checked, there was a world of difference between McHale and almost everyone who ever played PF, so that's not much of a slight on Al.  He also has time to develop still.  I'm sure he wishes he played with players of the caliber of Bird, Parish, and DJ.  I'm sure he'd shoot a better percentage.

Why do you assume I didn't read the post? That is one of my big pet peeves.

McHale was a post threat of another degree than Big Al. To posit McHale for Big Al skews the debate.

Sorry man, I'll assume if you seem to not understand where that conversation was headed.  The intial post he responded to claimed post players were of no value basically, then a guy said "I wonder what you think of McHale then?" (as if to say, "he is one of the greatest post players of all time, did he have no value?") And then you made it a comparison between McHale and Al, which it wasn't at all.

[Fafnir]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

[Snakehead]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

He can certainly improve his J, but plenty of great bigs take shots like that.  KG shoots about 70% and so does Jermaine O'Neal.  And if you play with better teammates as a big man, your ability to be open will greatly improve.  Teams will not be able to double you as easily and you will be lost in the shuffle when your defender goes to help on penetration.

This is common sense.  He will get easier shots playing with good teammates, and then convert a higher percentage of those shots.

[Fafnir]

Sorry man, I'll assume if you seem to not understand where that conversation was headed.  The intial post he responded to claimed post players were of no value basically, then a guy said "I wonder what you think of McHale then?" (as if to say, "he is one of the greatest post players of all time, did he have no value?") And then you made it a comparison between McHale and Al, which it wasn't at all.

My point is that when you are talking about the value of post players its one thing to talk about Big Al and another to be talking about Kevin McHale.

If you're going to assume that I'm not reading posts, I probably won't bother to read yours going forward.

[Fafnir]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

He can certainly improve his J, but plenty of great bigs take shots like that.  KG shoots about 70% and so does Jermaine O'Neal.  And if you play with better teammates as a big man, your ability to be open will greatly improve.  Teams will not be able to double you as easily and you will be lost in the shuffle when your defender goes to help on penetration.

This is common sense.  He will get easier shots playing with good teammates, and then convert a higher percentage of those shots.

KG and Jermain O'Neal aren't "great" bigs, at least not offensively.

Neither are really post up guys, nor have they been for a very long time. Better team mates leads to easier shots if they move the ball and you are willing to work off the ball to get easier opportunties. I'm not sure how Big Al will react to not getting a steady diet of post isos. He struggled with the triangle, and could also struggle in Utah.

[BballTim]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

  What does big minutes have to do with efficiency? And what do you think drives his shot selection? Defenses collapse on him when he gets the ball close to the basket. For some reason they aren't worried that Flynn, Brewer, Gomes, and Love are that much of a threat offensively. I agree with that. The big three all saw increases to their efficiency when they were put on a team with better players around them because the defenses were less able to focus on them. So should Al.

 And it's a smallish sample size (half a season) but it's not 5 games or anything. And it was fairly obvious at the time that defenses paid more attention to Al when Paul wasn't in the game. So the numbers make sense.

[Fafnir]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

  What does big minutes have to do with efficiency? And what do you think drives his shot selection? Defenses collapse on him when he gets the ball close to the basket. For some reason they aren't worried that Flynn, Brewer, Gomes, and Love are that much of a threat offensively. I agree with that. The big three all saw increases to their efficiency when they were put on a team with better players around them because the defenses were less able to focus on them. So should Al.

 And it's a smallish sample size (half a season) but it's not 5 games or anything. And it was fairly obvious at the time that defenses paid more attention to Al when Paul wasn't in the game. So the numbers make sense.

By big minutes I mean when he was a starter and had plenty of opportunities to take shots. When you're a bench player you have less chances to take a lot of shots, that's all I meant.

I think Big Al needs to break a lot of bad habits he picked up in Minnesota if he's going to see a jump that seems to be expected going to the Jazz.

Hopefully he will.

[Snakehead]

Sorry man, I'll assume if you seem to not understand where that conversation was headed.  The intial post he responded to claimed post players were of no value basically, then a guy said "I wonder what you think of McHale then?" (as if to say, "he is one of the greatest post players of all time, did he have no value?") And then you made it a comparison between McHale and Al, which it wasn't at all.

My point is that when you are talking about the value of post players its one thing to talk about Big Al and another to be talking about Kevin McHale.

If you're going to assume that I'm not reading posts, I probably won't bother to read yours going forward.

You don't have to.  I just don't see why it was a comparison between McHale all the sudden.  No one claims Al is that good.  The point is: Both are post oriented big men and both provide the benefits to a team that a post oriented big man does, if to diffent degrees.  Pablo, who basically said there is not value to a post player, could not have been more wrong.  I do not know how someone thinks that and watches any basketball.

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

He can certainly improve his J, but plenty of great bigs take shots like that.  KG shoots about 70% and so does Jermaine O'Neal.  And if you play with better teammates as a big man, your ability to be open will greatly improve.  Teams will not be able to double you as easily and you will be lost in the shuffle when your defender goes to help on penetration.

This is common sense.  He will get easier shots playing with good teammates, and then convert a higher percentage of those shots.

KG and Jermain O'Neal aren't "great" bigs, at least not offensively.

Neither are really post up guys, nor have they been for a very long time. Better team mates leads to easier shots if they move the ball and you are willing to work off the ball to get easier opportunties. I'm not sure how Big Al will react to not getting a steady diet of post isos. He struggled with the triangle, and could also struggle in Utah.

Both are great bigs, for what they provide all around (defense, boards, passing, and offense), and though neither are the best offensively at this point in their careers both are still good and especially they are smart.  How good they are I guess depends on what you define as "great"... I think both make a big impact towards making their teams better offensively.  Neither takes bad shots and both are good passers, KG among the best big passers in the game.  Neither compare directly to how big Al plays now too much, but since they both take about the same percentage of jumpers, it's not that far off in regards to shot selection.  And again, KG and Jermaine have good shot selection.  The difference between Al's shots and theirs are that they play on better teams and thus get better looks at the basket.

Minnesota running the triangle was the biggest joke.  You can't force a triangle offense if you don't have the players to make it work.  Rambis ran it because that is what he learned but running it in Minny was seriously ill advised.

And Al ran post isos all the time because those plays were called.. was he calling them out?  Both the Celtics teams he played on and Minny seriously lacked consistent offensive options outside of Al himself, and thus they ran plays and isos for him.  You think he would object to the pick and roll with Deron Williams or easier baskets?   Why?

And he will have a great coach for him in Sloan.  He loves interior passing and Al will be the beneficiary of that style.



And Tim, you've earned another TP in an hour lol.  Good posts.

[BballTim]

Al Jefferson isn't that efficient of a scorer though. His TS% is just .535, not great at all.

  Does that surprise you when, over the last 3 years, his team's 2nd leading scorer were McCants, Foye and Love? He had one year as a starter with the Celts, and Pierce missed about half the season with injuries. If you do the math from their player pairs, Al shot about 48% and got about 4.5 foul shots per 48 minutes without Paul, but about 55% and 5.8 foul shots per 48 with Pierce. His TS% was about 58^ with Pierce, about 52% without him. The numbers with PP would have put Al top 15% or so for power forwards.

Thats a mighty small sample size to draw conclusions from.

I think if Big Al was going to be a high efficiency scorer he would have done so in his big minutes. His efficiency problem isn't due to his team mates, but rather his poor shot selection. (he shoots and misses a lot of jumpers for a post man 60% of his shots and only makes 38%)

  What does big minutes have to do with efficiency? And what do you think drives his shot selection? Defenses collapse on him when he gets the ball close to the basket. For some reason they aren't worried that Flynn, Brewer, Gomes, and Love are that much of a threat offensively. I agree with that. The big three all saw increases to their efficiency when they were put on a team with better players around them because the defenses were less able to focus on them. So should Al.

 And it's a smallish sample size (half a season) but it's not 5 games or anything. And it was fairly obvious at the time that defenses paid more attention to Al when Paul wasn't in the game. So the numbers make sense.

By big minutes I mean when he was a starter and had plenty of opportunities to take shots. When you're a bench player you have less chances to take a lot of shots, that's all I meant.

I think Big Al needs to break a lot of bad habits he picked up in Minnesota if he's going to see a jump that seems to be expected going to the Jazz.

Hopefully he will.

  A lot of those bad habits were made out of necessity, though. If you look at his scoring compared to Boozer (who he'll more or less be replacing), Boozer took about half his shots from the inside and hit 67% of them for about 10 points a game. For Al, he took about 40% of his shots from the inside and hit about 66% of them for about 8 points a game. But Boozer had about 75% of his baskets from the inside assisted, compared to about 40% for Al. So Boozer got easier looks at the basket but still didn't hit those shots at a better clip than Al.

[The DarkPassenger]

Good for Al and good for the Jazz. I am so happy that he was able to get away from the NBA's comedy team and play for a contending team with an front office who doesn't drink.

I hope that Beasley, Love, Webster and Flynn can get away soon. Did they release Telfair yet? If not then add him to the list. Best of luck to all of the Timberwolves roster... except Darko... you're horrible... just horrible.