Devin Harris on Al Jefferson: Jazz fans will be surprised if they see him

[sepanol]

a) Boozer averages 20ppg and 10rpg for every minute he plays as a 5 in the NBA?? Lets see some proof here, because i sincerely doubt that
b) He made more points off of more attempts? Wrong again. Al Jefferson's FG% actually increased after the All-Star break. 0/2 Sepanol.
c) I can agree that if the 2010-2011 season was Al Jefferson's ceiling as a player for the rest of his career, his salary would be ****ing awful. However, what I think, and what many others also think, is that Al Jefferson has quite the high ceiling, and has yet to acclaim it. After seeing his improvement over the last half of the season, and stories of commitment to develop better as a player, coupled with his apparent loyalty to this city, people think that hes gonna get better. And quite frankly speanol it would be stupid of everyone to say that he DOESNT have the tools to be a 24/11 player, because he totally does. If he simply draws a couple more fouls, and adds strength to box out more effectively, we could have one of the top PF/Cs in the NBA on our team. So though you seem to be quick to dismiss him, let us wait to see how good he becomes. Quite frankly, this two year wait of Al Jeffersons skill-development coincides very nicely with Kanter becoming accustomed to the NBA, and it puts us ina great situation 2-3 years down the road when we need to chose between the two. We must all be patient with the development of our players before we automatically deduce what should be done with the roster of this team. Lets keep our core intact for a bit; we can become scary good in 5 years.

How many players improved by margin after their 6-7th year in nba?
Lets not dismiss him, but i dont have any hope that he will improve too much. He may have high ceiling but unfortunately he wont reach that high because he lacks basketball iq, otherwise i dont argue his skills.

 

[Brown Notes]

...After seeing his improvement over the last half of the season, and stories of commitment to develop better as a player, coupled with his apparent loyalty to this city, people think that hes gonna get better. And quite frankly speanol it would be stupid of everyone to say that he DOESNT have the tools to be a 24/11 player, because he totally does. If he simply draws a couple more fouls, and adds strength to box out more effectively, we could have one of the top PF/Cs in the NBA on our team. So though you seem to be quick to dismiss him, let us wait to see how good he becomes. Quite frankly, this two year wait of Al Jeffersons skill-development coincides very nicely with Kanter becoming accustomed to the NBA, and it puts us ina great situation 2-3 years down the road when we need to chose between the two. We must all be patient with the development of our players before we automatically deduce what should be done with the roster of this team. Lets keep our core intact for a bit; we can become scary good in 5 years.

That's the key right there. AJ is up in 2 years. By then we will all know what Kanter and Favors are all about. All 3 of these guys are not going to be championship caliber players, but the odds are pretty good that at least one of them is a cornerstone talent. You absolutely do not want to be rolling the dice on this.

 

[Zerol]

How many players improved by margin after their 6-7th year in nba?
Lets not dismiss him, but i dont have any hope that he will improve too much. He may have high ceiling but unfortunately he wont reach that high because he lacks basketball iq, otherwise i dont argue his skills.

If that is all you are arguing about, Al's basketball IQ, then I think you are forming your judgment way too early. As many of the posters have mentioned, this was only his first stinct with a decent team since he came to the league, and the term "team basketball" was just introduced to him this season. That is the reason why you could tell that he was very good scoring the ball on isolation plays and a strong 1-on-1 defender but was bad passing out of double teams and a lousy help defender or pick and roll defender. The thing is though, he actually improved in those areas as the season progressed, so I am not sure we can come to the conclusion that he has no basketball IQ just yet.

 

[sepanol]

If that is all you are arguing about, Al's basketball IQ, then I think you are forming your judgment way too early. As many of the posters have mentioned, this was only his first stinct with a decent team since he came to the league, and the term "team basketball" was just introduced to him this season. That is the reason why you could tell that he was very good scoring the ball on isolation plays and a strong 1-on-1 defender but was bad passing out of double teams and a lousy help defender or pick and roll defender. The thing is though, he actually improved in those areas as the season progressed, so I am not sure we can come to the conclusion that he has no basketball IQ just yet.

I came to a judgment after seeing him whole year. If he was in nba for 2-3 years i would say you are right, but after 6-7 years i dont expect him to improve marginally. Anyway he must perform better than Kanter in his year for sure, but i am not sure if it is enough reason to be so high on him. We will just see how things will turn out to be

 

[jope]

And quite frankly speanol it would be stupid of everyone to say that he DOESNT have the tools to be a 24/11 player, because he totally does. If he simply draws a couple more fouls, and adds strength to box out more effectively, we could have one of the top PF/Cs in the NBA on our team.

How many players improved by margin after their 6-7th year in nba?
Lets not dismiss him, but i dont have any hope that he will improve too much. He may have high ceiling but unfortunately he wont reach that high because he lacks basketball iq, otherwise i dont argue his skills.

I came to a judgment after seeing him whole year. If he was in nba for 2-3 years i would say you are right, but after 6-7 years i dont expect him to improve marginally. Anyway he must perform better than Kanter in his year for sure, but i am not sure if it is enough reason to be so high on him. We will just see how things will turn out to be

Al Jefferson post all star game averages (basketball-reference.com)

pts per game - 23.39 (53.5% shooting)
Rebs - 11.5
blk - 1.88

If he plays as he did post all star game... he wont really need to improve at all to reach 24 and 11. definitely not out the question.

 

[sepanol]

Al Jefferson post all star game averages (basketball-reference.com)

pts per game - 23.39 (53.5% shooting)
Rebs - 11.5
blk - 1.88

If he plays as he did post all star game... he wont really need to improve at all to reach 24 and 11. definitely not out the question.

You are always talking about the numbers, stats has lots of holes, they dont mean anything alone. And 53.5% shooting for a big man (who doesnt attempt too many shots far from the rim) isn't that exclusive.
For rebounds and blocking i can give him credit, but certainly, he didnt turn into a better player just because he put better numbers with post all star game avgs.

This year Randolph got so much attention because he fit into a game plan at last, and he took lots of initiatives in the playoffs. He put great performance especially in the game ends. Jefferson must do something like that in order to be a player we can rely on for future. But as i said, he doesn't have a reliable jump shot, so he is more easily guardable than Randolph, especially in playoffs. We will see how everything on theory will translate to the practicality.

 

[sepanol]

Btw Millsap has the same percentage of fg for whole season, even though he use much more jump shots and even 3s time to time.

 

[sepanol]

GP MPG FGM-FGA FG% 3PM-3PA 3P% FTM-FTA FT% RPG APG BLKPG STLPG PFPG TOPG PPG
Millsap
2010-11 Regular Season 76 34.3 6.9-13.0 .531 0.1-0.3 .391 3.4-4.4 .757 7.6 2.5 0.9 1.4 3.6 1.9 17.3
Jefferson
2010-11 Regular Season 82 35.9 8.0-16.1 .496 0.0-0.0 .000 2.7-3.5 .761 9.7 1.8 1.9 0.6 2.9 1.3 18.6


So does anyone see a 6 million dollar difference between ?

 

[Zerol]

GP MPG FGM-FGA FG% 3PM-3PA 3P% FTM-FTA FT% RPG APG BLKPG STLPG PFPG TOPG PPG
Millsap
2010-11 Regular Season 76 34.3 6.9-13.0 .531 0.1-0.3 .391 3.4-4.4 .757 7.6 2.5 0.9 1.4 3.6 1.9 17.3
Jefferson
2010-11 Regular Season 82 35.9 8.0-16.1 .496 0.0-0.0 .000 2.7-3.5 .761 9.7 1.8 1.9 0.6 2.9 1.3 18.6


So does anyone see a 6 million dollar difference between ?

You first said stats don't mean anything alone, and yet you use stats as evidence of what a player is worth.

You claimed that you watched all the games during the season, but apparently you could not tell that Millsap was undersized, couldn't consistently score against taller, longer opponents, and couldn't guard them well also.

 

[sepanol]

You first said stats don't mean anything alone, and yet you use stats as evidence of what a player is worth.

You claimed that you watched all the games during the season, but apparently you could not tell that Millsap was undersized, couldn't consistently score against taller, longer opponents, and couldn't guard them well also.

Thats what i mean , stats are empty holes sometimes, it doesnt write millsap is undersized and blablabla in the stats, so we dont have a good proof about how good he is right?

So thats why i prefer to watch the players and decide, and according to me, Big Al doesn't worth 14 million per year as good as numbers he put. It is easy to say, he had 24 11 post allstar and else, then i would say Millsap had 30 10 in utahs 4 game streak in the east, so will it make Millsap better than he is ? Hell no.

But at least he is worth what he is paid, and he can easily accept a bench role in future while Big Al would never do that (if Favors and Kanter will prove to be good players as we hope)

 

[sepanol]

couldn't consistently score against taller, longer opponents, and couldn't guard them well also.

And it is worse not being able to guard while you have physical advantage like Big Al than being undersized like Sap.

 

[Deleted member 848]

You first said stats don't mean anything alone, and yet you use stats as evidence of what a player is worth.

You claimed that you watched all the games during the season, but apparently you could not tell that Millsap was undersized, couldn't consistently score against taller, longer opponents, and couldn't guard them well also.

.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Zerol again.

 

[Deleted member 848]

And it is worse not being able to guard while you have physical advantage like Big Al than being undersized like Sap.

Ive honestly completely lost track of what you're arguing here. First of all, it is consensus that Al improved in many facets of the game towards the end of the season, especially things like passing out of the double team, and assisting in general. Therefore, since he seems to be on an improving trend, and the fact that Kanter will probably be rubbish for the first but of his NBA career given his lack of experience, it is MOST wise if we hang on to both for the first two years. Do you think Al Jefferson has climaxed? Probably, and quite frankly, I don't care if you do. Im just glad we have much smarter people running the team than people who expect some Eurostiff with no vertical or great Basketball experience (in the past couple of years, apart form Eurobasket) to swoop in and take over one of thew few 20/10 Centers position in the league. I honestly thin Kanter could become very good in the NBA, but its obvious that he needs to seriously improve first, and quite frankly its not gonna happen over a 1-2 year span Therefore, hate it or love it, Big al is most likely here to stay.

and PS not sure why you keep mentioning the salary as some sort of evil. We are in no tough economical situation whatsoever, nor SHOULD our team be using cap space to do sign expensive free agents, seeing as we should be intent on developing our draft picks first. And guess what? When the rookie contracts are over, guess what that coincides with? Big Als contract expiring. I think you fail to see how good of a financial/talent situation we are in right now, and throwing away Al Jefferson simply for cap space that we don't NEED right now is utterly foolish.

 

[sepanol]

Ive honestly completely lost track of what you're arguing here. First of all, it is consensus that Al improved in many facets of the game towards the end of the season, especially things like passing out of the double team, and assisting in general. Therefore, since he seems to be on an improving trend, and the fact that Kanter will probably be rubbish for the first but of his NBA career given his lack of experience, it is MOST wise if we hang on to both for the first two years. Do you think Al Jefferson has climaxed? Probably, and quite frankly, I don't care if you do. Im just glad we have much smarter people running the team than people who expect some Eurostiff with no vertical or great Basketball experience (in the past couple of years, apart form Eurobasket) to swoop in and take over one of thew few 20/10 Centers position in the league. I honestly thin Kanter could become very good in the NBA, but its obvious that he needs to seriously improve first, and quite frankly its not gonna happen over a 1-2 year span Therefore, hate it or love it, Big al is most likely here to stay.

and PS not sure why you keep mentioning the salary as some sort of evil. We are in no tough economical situation whatsoever, nor SHOULD our team be using cap space to do sign expensive free agents, seeing as we should be intent on developing our draft picks first. And guess what? When the rookie contracts are over, guess what that coincides with? Big Als contract expiring. I think you fail to see how good of a financial/talent situation we are in right now, and throwing away Al Jefferson simply for cap space that we don't NEED right now is utterly foolish.

We are on completely different opinions for sure, so no need to discuss same things again and again
but you talk like we are in rush to be champion next year, i honestly think it is better for us to get as bad position as possible this year, so we can get another good draft pick next year while there are a bunch of good players, of course i will be pointing out the salary, if i wont mention about Big Al's salary right now it means we all were not fair against AKs salary for all these years past.

 

[Brown Notes]

We are on completely different opinions for sure, so no need to discuss same things again and again
but you talk like we are in rush to be champion next year, i honestly think it is better for us to get as bad position as possible this year, so we can get another good draft pick next year while there are a bunch of good players, of course i will be pointing out the salary, if i wont mention about Big Al's salary right now it means we all were not fair against AKs salary for all these years past.

That is a horrible F'ing argument.

 

[sepanol]

That is a horrible F'ing argument.

Would it be better if we made it to playoffs and get our *** beaten in the first round instead of getting Burks last year?

 

[//r00t 4 Jazz]

Would it be better if we made it to playoffs and get our *** beaten in the first round instead of getting Burks last year?

There is two different theories of logic here, the one your thinking is if your not going to contend right now then might as well suck and get keep our pick in the lotto and hope to get GSW's lotto pick.
The other is that with as young as the Jazz are and just adding 2 more lotto picks this draft do you really think the Jazz have room for 2 more? Also if the team is bad then their bad but if the vets can show the young guys what it takes and get them some playoff experience and attitude that is better then breading a losing culture.

 

[sepanol]

There is two different theories of logic here, the one your thinking is if your not going to contend right now then might as well suck and get keep our pick in the lotto and hope to get GSW's lotto pick.
The other is that with as young as the Jazz are and just adding 2 more lotto picks this draft do you really think the Jazz have room for 2 more? Also if the team is bad then their bad but if the vets can show the young guys what it takes and get them some playoff experience and attitude that is better then breading a losing culture.

Anyway it is an asset to get 2 lottery picks. We can trade it with a better upper pick or do something else. This year going to playoffs doesnt really make any good for me. I have seen that scene for many years, we were just a playoff team but not contender. It should change anymore.

 

[GVC]

but apparently you could not tell that Millsap was undersized, couldn't consistently score against taller, longer opponents

And yet he almost scored as much on WAY better efficiency than the longer Al Jefferson. What was his excuse?

 

[Deleted member 848]

And yet he almost scored as much on WAY better efficiency than the longer Al Jefferson. What was his excuse?

I think he was referring to the fact that Millsap would struggle specifically against certain opponents last season, like LaMarcus Aldridge, Pau Gasol, and other taller Power Forwards. Personally Id be very intrigued to see this data, and I'm not sure if you could compile it, GVC. The reason this would be relevant is because in the playoffs, we are likely to match up against very tall, strong PFs and if our starting 4 has trouble against them, then were in heaps of trouble. Ill see if I can find any data of note that could contribute to this point.