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Al Jefferson - second best big defender in NBA?

Wow, can you imagine compiling all those stats together? Some people have way too much time on their hands.

I thought the same thing, but I'm guessing he just took info straight from the site. No way he could have actually watched all the plays of each player and compiled the stats himself.
 
Great, so AJ is the 2nd best and Millsap is the 8th worst. Got it.

This brings balance to the force.
 
While I don't agree that Jefferson is the 2nd best, or anywhere close, he's not nearly as bad as he's made out to be. Where he's bad is in transition defense. But our transition defense is mostly bad because of how poor our system is. Our guys are always looking for their man on transition, not guarding the court and adjusting once the break has been stopped. AK is really the only guy we have that truly plays the break the right way. He gets back, gets to the middle, and drops anchor. Unfortunately, nobody is on the same page with him. That said, Al needs to run a little harder.
 
While I don't agree that Jefferson is the 2nd best, or anywhere close, he's not nearly as bad as he's made out to be. Where he's bad is in transition defense. But our transition defense is mostly bad because of how poor our system is. Our guys are always looking for their man on transition, not guarding the court and adjusting once the break has been stopped. AK is really the only guy we have that truly plays the break the right way. He gets back, gets to the middle, and drops anchor. Unfortunately, nobody is on the same page with him. That said, Al needs to run a little harder.

My biggest gripe with Big Al is that doesn't box out harder. I think a lot of this is he needs to improve his strength and conditioning.
 
My biggest gripe with Big Al is that doesn't box out harder. I think a lot of this is he needs to improve his strength and conditioning.

I don't disagree. The only thing I would say about that is we had such a poor defensive system this year that guys were almost always lost in space. It's easy to say guys didn't block out, but if you're not actually guarding someone, as is the case with poor switches, you don't have anyone to block out.

I'm not excusing Al. The big flaw in his rebounding game is he isn't nearly as physical as he should be. He's got the body, and I think he has the will, but he needs to make rebounding a lot more personal than he has shown to this point.
 
Let's see if the NBA rewards him with an all-NBA defensive second team honor....

All joking aside, I agree Al needs to work on boxing out and giving better efforts when going up against quicker Cs... Pretty sad to see him get killed by Noah and Robin Lopez
 
Didn't the same site that had Millsap as the 8th worst defender have Jefferson in the 160-ish range out of 200 or so? How can two websites, trying to come up with the same result, have such completely different results.
 
Didn't the same site that had Millsap as the 8th worst defender have Jefferson in the 160-ish range out of 200 or so? How can two websites, trying to come up with the same result, have such completely different results.

Because, like baseball, basketball has become over-run with complicated junk stats so people can sound like they know what they're talking about without actually having the attention span required to sit through a game. It's inevitable that they'll begin to contradict each other.
 
Didn't the same site that had Millsap as the 8th worst defender have Jefferson in the 160-ish range out of 200 or so? How can two websites, trying to come up with the same result, have such completely different results.

Correct. And I think those of us who watched games would agree more with the first site. Interior defense was woeful.

Also, one post here said Big Al has the body to be a great defender. Mebbe, but if you look at his shoulders and arms, he and the weight room have only a nodding aquaintance.
 
Big Al is 6' 8.5" in his socks and even though he has a long wing span, he gives up size every night. I was actually impressed with his defense and I thought was better than Memo....which isn't saying a lot. The problem he had is that he and Millsap are undersized and teams game plans were to take it to the hoop.
 
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