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

[sepanol]

And here it is again. Kanter Kanter Kanter. YOU ARE WRONG. Kanter is not going to be a great player in his first year, maybe not even 2. Believe me, we all get that you love your guy. It is great that a Turkish man was drafted so high. Good for you. I like your country too. I hope that Turkey continues to be an example of success. But Kanter is going to take 2-4 years in the NBA to get close to his potential. In the meantime the Jazz have a player who is not only better right now but has a great attitude and will in all likelihood be willing to teach the young man things he has never seen.

I really don't mind you getting excited about your player. Just stop it with trying to put him in an unrealistic light.

I never told he is gonna come and dominate maybe you don't pay attention to my posts, i don't think you would have a comprehension problem since it is your main language. ( I dont think Valanciunas will be so different as well,as i remember you were so high on him)

And i dont think i put Kanter on unrealistic lights, just im telling, along with Favors and Hayward, he is the future of this team.
It is ridiculous how high you are on Harris and Jefferson, because for me, they are already proven they aren't winners. At best Harris can be a good backup in a good team from now on, and Jefferson can be a starting PF in a really bad team. (Because his ego is too high to accept a back up role even in Lakers)

I dont say high picks always make a good team, but the higher pick you have means you have a better asset at least at the day of the draft, so you can use it somehow.

And about Ty Corbin thing, i will take that as you know Utah better than me, but Utah isn't Lakers, we didn't have a single championship, so it is ridiculous if they are gonna boo him just because he didn't make miracles with youngsters in his first full year of coaching.

I am not trying to contend you all the time, but obviously, we have completely different ideas.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Well, I guess I agree with Alec, I'll be surprised if/when I see Al .. I'm to the point I'll be surprised to see any of them.

 

[GVC]

You're still trying to prove Al is bad based on your own limited idea that certain stats tell the whole worth of a player.

And, for about the 100th time in this thread, I'm not trying to "prove", or assert in any way, that Al is "bad" in this thread. Why you continue to lie about what I've said, I don't know. I've asked you to stop several times, but you refuse. You're a snake in the grass. A dim-witted ****ing weasel.

I was refuting some inaccurate statements Zerol made (not attacking Al). You can go back and read his and my posts in this thread, since it's obvious you've yet to do so.

 

[GVC]

Lol. Its a good thing you admitted this was a foolish thing to say afterwards.

Uh, I never admitted it was a foolish thing to say because it's not. A win in November is worth the same as a win in March.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Uh, I never admitted it was a foolish thing to say because it's not. A win in November is worth the same as a win in March.

GVC - Why can't you just admit when you're wrong, even when you're not? Why do you insist that other posters read what you posted before commenting and quoting you? I don't get it.

 

[Deleted member 848]

Uh, I never admitted it was a foolish thing to say because it's not. A win in November is worth the same as a win in March.

Well you admitted that it was overstated. To overstate something, in my mind, is considered a foolish thing to do in the heat of a discussion. Hence my inference.

 

[GVC]

Well you admitted that it was overstated. To overstate something, in my mind, is considered a foolish thing to do in the heat of a discussion. Hence my inference.

That's not what I said I overstated. It is absolutely true that wins in November are worth the same as wins in March.

If you can't keep up, why post? You only make yourself look foolish.

 

[Deleted member 848]

That's not what I said I overstated. It is absolutely true that wins in November are worth the same as wins in March.

If you can't keep up, why post? You only make yourself look foolish.

From what I gathered (correct me if I am mistaken) you initially claimed that games in March were meaningless, in comparison to ones in November, which you then apologized for by saying you overstated them. I simply assumed that this overstatement covered that post as well as your more recent posts, but I suppose you're now trying to argue the"absolute worth" of games, a concept I find hilarious. Was my assumption foolish? Yes, I suppose my reading comprehension failed me for a second. Still doesn't take away from the absurdity of you arguing that games in November are the same as ones in March.

In the stretch after March the 20th when we matched up against teams fighting for the playoffs (the Rockets on the 20th, the Grizzlies on the 21st, New Orleans on the 24th) when we were maybe a game behind strikes me as MUCH more important than playing Milwaukee on November 29th, for example. Sure the literal worth of winning either game is obviously the same, but had we won the games against Memphis, the Hornets and the Rockets back in March I feel like the season would have ended much differently.The Jazz were 36-33 before they lost that pivotal game in Houston, and then going on a subsequent 8 game losing streak. I don't know how one could argue against this.

You also never addressed the second part of my initial post addressed towards you.

 

[GVC]

Sure the literal worth of winning either game is obviously the same, but had we won the games against Memphis, the Hornets and the Rockets back in March I feel like the season would have ended much differently.The Jazz were 36-33 before they lost that pivotal game in Houston, and then going on a subsequent 8 game losing streak. I don't know how one could argue against this.

What if the Jazz had 8 more wins before their 8 game losing streak? 5 more wins? I don't know how anyone would need this repeated so many times to understand.

What do you want me to address in your first post? I don't recall saying anything that contradicts it in this thread.

 

[jope]

The thing i don't understand, is why no one is rooting for al and paul to learn how to play together effectively... if they could just figure it out, we have hands down a top 5 front court.

Maybe instead of deciding whos better, lets embrace the fact that we have 2 studs up front, with 2 potential studs on the bench fighting for their moment.

 

[GVC]

The biggest problem with the two of them playing together is that they're both much better offensive rebounders than defensive rebounders. As a result, the Jazz give up far too many offensive rebounds, while also not taking full advantage of the offensive rebounding abilities of Millsap and Jefferson (that is, only one of them can grab an offensive rebound on any particular possession). Further, it's tough for Paul to work with the ball from the high post and short corner (where he's pretty damn effective) with Big Al down low. Either you force Millsap to shoot long jumpers (which he did very effectively last season) or you have to pull Al out of the low post (which, like with Millsap, hurts his efficiency). As a 4/5 tandem, they don't complement each other well at all.

Now, if Paul's perimeter game continues to improve- which, given his past growth, seems pretty reasonable- there's a chance that the Jazz can get by with Paul splitting time at the 3 and 4 while Favors and Kanter grow. If both Favors and Kanter turn into 30+ minute players, there won;t be enough minutes to go around unless Millsap can play most of his minutes at the 3. The problem there is that Millsap's strengths won't be used to full advantage, as is the case with him playing beside Al in the frontcourt.

So we'll have to wait and see hoe Paul and Al come back, and how quickly Kanter and Favors can develop. There are enough minutes for all of them right now, so there's no rush to trade any of them.

 

[sepanol]

From what I gathered (correct me if I am mistaken) you initially claimed that games in March were meaningless, in comparison to ones in November, which you then apologized for by saying you overstated them. I simply assumed that this overstatement covered that post as well as your more recent posts, but I suppose you're now trying to argue the"absolute worth" of games, a concept I find hilarious. Was my assumption foolish? Yes, I suppose my reading comprehension failed me for a second. Still doesn't take away from the absurdity of you arguing that games in November are the same as ones in March.

In the stretch after March the 20th when we matched up against teams fighting for the playoffs (the Rockets on the 20th, the Grizzlies on the 21st, New Orleans on the 24th) when we were maybe a game behind strikes me as MUCH more important than playing Milwaukee on November 29th, for example. Sure the literal worth of winning either game is obviously the same, but had we won the games against Memphis, the Hornets and the Rockets back in March I feel like the season would have ended much differently.The Jazz were 36-33 before they lost that pivotal game in Houston, and then going on a subsequent 8 game losing streak. I don't know how one could argue against this.

You also never addressed the second part of my initial post addressed towards you.

March games for me, are generally not that decisive. You already play almost 70 games the whole year and you can't make much difference with grabbing a few more wins. GVC is trying to say that if Big Al (and Jazz) performed better earlier we wouldn't have been in that critical situation already. So we wouldn't have need to grab a few more wins to enter the playoffs. And if you aren't good enough most of the season, you can't make miracles just in one month and achieve great things in playoffs.

Memphis was one of the best teams in post allstar period that's why they deserved it , and they beat SA. But if we could grab a few more wins in march and make it to playoffs, we would probably get our *** kicked by SA. So you can't prove Big Al had a good year because he made good numbers in relatively not important games. In the month of march, we were already discussing here, is it better whether we go to playoffs or get a better draft pick? Even fans lost their hope for the rest of the season means, players are aware whats going on and they aren't stupid to hope they are gonna get into playoffs after they lost their best player and there are 2 teams performing much better than them ahead. (Houston and Memphis)

Here i send a link to Big Als game log stats, you will see that he sucked in march except the SA game. Let me tell you the only games he put a above average performance and that we won in after deron williams trade. (and it is normal he averaged more than before because he turned out to be the first option on offense)

https://espn.go.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/2389/al-jefferson


January, indiana 30 points 9 rebs
February
sacramento 27 points 7 rebs
toronto 34 points 8 rebs
philadelphia 30 pts 17 rebs
minnesota 26 pts 11 rebs

march
lakers 11 pts 11 rebs
new orleans 8 pts 6 rebs
denver 17 pts 10 rebs

Actually i have posted our only wins in after dwill trade. So as you have seen, the fact that he made some good numbers against the worst teams in the league doesn't convince me that he marginally increased his performance and became such a good player or whatever. If you say he made a big leap in post all star break, i would say that's because he totally sucked before all star. If a player is getting 14 million per year, he is supposed to perform at least like jefferson did in the post all star break but it shouldn't make him special that he performed well. Because there are bunch of guys in the league performing better than him with less salary.

I think Big Al is a good player, but whoever thinks he is our most important player, franchise player, one of the best 10 big men in the league or whatever, i would say, just wake up from your dream because he is not.