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

[sepanol]

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.

But when Big Al and Sap plays together, they are kinda stopping each other both in defense and offense. We have seen that last year. Only player Big Al can play comfortably with here is Favors. Because with other players we have certain weaknesses. But i believe Millsap can play with anyone except Big Al here, Memo, Kanter, Favors(maybe the offense will be a little raw) but millsap and Big Al certainly doesn't complement each other.

 

[billyshelby]

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.

You have your months mixed up. The March games you list were in April. Al's February and March was phenomenal by any standard.

 

[sepanol]

You have your months mixed up. The March games you list were in April. Al's February and March was phenomenal by any standard.

sorry you are right about the months, i wrote wrong but anyway his performance didn't help us win. I don't care if he scores 30 points while we lost to knicks, dallas by 30 margin. His February and March performance was phenomenal in numbers, not in the game. And i agree in some games he played really good even though we lost, but that doesn't make his full year successful. If you are satisfied with it, its your choice but i am not. He should put 24 11 in playoffs, or more critical games, then i will be ok. But I dont believe he can be a franchise player in any above average team in nba.

 

[billyshelby]

sorry you are right about the months, i wrote wrong but anyway his performance didn't help us win. I don't care if he scores 30 points while we lost to knicks, dallas by 30 margin. His February and March performance was phenomenal in numbers, not in the game. And i agree in some games he played really good even though we lost, but that doesn't make his full year successful. If you are satisfied with it, its your choice but i am not. He should put 24 11 in playoffs, or more critical games, then i will be ok. But I dont believe he can be a franchise player in any above average team in nba.

So Al's performances in games we lost don't count?

 

[sepanol]

So Al's performances in games we lost don't count?

You don't get my point, Big Al never proved he is a winner yet, he never proved he is a good playoff player (like Randolph did this year), so it seems funny to me to praise him so much. He is just an above average PF who can't use his skills as good as he is supposed to , and i dont think it will change in future. You guys maybe relying on him so much, but i don't think he is the guy to be a cornerstone for our franchise.

 

[Fishsticks]

Kanter has never played in the NBA, yet you speak of him like he is the next comming of Karl Malone. Al played very well down the stretch and while they did not win many games, it's foolish to believe that was is fault. Al needs another year in the system without dwill ripping out his confidence. If he can't pull it together then we can speak aboit moving him.

 

[Deleted member 848]

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.

I feel like you're intentionally missing my point, just for the sake of you giving yourself a false-perception of winning this argument. Its funny how you argue in a much more childish manner than the youngest poster on this board. Congrats.

 

[GVC]

I feel like you're intentionally missing my point, just for the sake of you giving yourself a false-perception of winning this argument. Its funny how you argue in a much more childish manner than the youngest poster on this board. Congrats.

What is your point?

Referring to a post where I said a win in November is worth the same as a win in March (which you mistakenly thought I admitted was false), you said:

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

After which, I restated that very conclusion: A win in November is worth the same as a win in March.

You then went on to assert again that I had admitted to overstating that point. I, AGAIN, told that that wasn't what I overstated.

You then made some statements about games in March not being the same as games in November. I never claimed they were, so I didn't understand how that point was at all relevant. You continued, stating that had the Jazz won some of the tight games in March, their season would have been different. Well, duh, of course. It would have been just as different had they won more games earlier in the season, which I pointed out in my reply.

What is your point? It seems like you're just throwing whatever **** out there to win an argument (including some ridiculous claims about my lack of intellectual honesty). Whatever. I challenged what you said with what I consider to be a true statement, and in response you've insulted me. How does that make me more childish than you?

 

[Deleted member 848]

You then made some statements about games in March not being the same as games in November. I never claimed they were, so I didn't understand how that point was at all relevant.

Hahahahahaha. Lets Re-quote some of your posts in case you have forgotten.

His late season run doesn't nullify his early season performance. Consider, also, how meaningful those late games were (relative to the early games)

November and December games are just as meaningful

(this was in response to billyshelby talking about the IMPORTANCE of March games, not worth)

What is your point?

Referring to a post where I said a win in November is worth the same as a win in March (which you mistakenly thought I admitted was false), you said:


After which, I restated that very conclusion: A win in November is worth the same as a win in March.


You then went on to assert again that I had admitted to overstating that point. I, AGAIN, told that that wasn't what I overstated.

Basically what Im witnessing here is that you have changed your point over the course of the argument, from wins in March being meaningless, to wins in March being "just as important as ones in November" and now you are arguing they are different, but claim that your point all along has been addressing the "worth" of these wins, a point you made later on into the argument AFTER stating the first 2-3 points.

Initially my point was addressing the first original points that you made this argument, talking about the relative unimportance (and then subsequently, equal importance) of games in November and March. After you began changing the argument in attempts to make me look idiotic, I figured I will just call you out and it, and also call you out on the irony of providing extremely-skewed data to support your argument, when a couple of weeks ago you gave me serious amounts of hell for doing the same. Thats the immaturity I am seeing in your posts.

 

[GVC]

My overstatement, which I admitted to, was that the games in March were meaningless because, with the passage of time, I had forgotten, at least in part, how late the Jazz were still in the race for a playoff spot (especially since, given the tail spin, most people were of the opinion, myself included, that the Jazz weren't going to make the playoffs). Had I remembered correctly, I wouldn't have made that statement, which is why I retracted it. I don't know why I should have to defend something I already admitted was an overstatement.

When you entered the thread, as I've already quoted, you were laughing about how it would be idiotic for anyone to claim that a win in November is worth the same as a win in March. That is what you quoted from me, and I assumed that's what you were addressing (you know, since that's what you quoted). You were never addressing a point I made about the relative importance of games because since admitting my mistake, I never made any claims about that. It's all right here in this thread, and you should be able to go back and read it. You'll see I've been consistent since admitting my overstatement.

As for skewed statistics, what exactly is the problem? Zerol and billy made completely unsubstantiated claims about Al's performance against a vague set of "elite" teams. I, being completely honest about my methodology, presented his stats against the top 4 Western Conference teams. I even stated that I'd have to know what they meant by "elite" to be able to check these claims, but they didn't come forward with definitions or data. The data I presented was accurate.

The issue I had with your data is that you chose to round your numbers in such a way (contrary to standard practice) to make your argument more credible. You did so without stating that that's what you were doing.

What I did was honest and accurate. If someone didn't like how I defined "elite" teams OR how much time I was willing to put into gathering data, they could re-define the term less ambiguously and collect the data themselves. What you did was dishonest and inaccurate. Period.

 

[Deleted member 848]

My overstatement, which I admitted to, was that the games in March were meaningless because, with the passage of time, I had forgotten, at least in part, how late the Jazz were still in the race for a playoff spot (especially since, given the tail spin, most people were of the opinion, myself included, that the Jazz weren't going to make the playoffs). Had I remembered correctly, I wouldn't have made that statement, which is why I retracted it. I don't know why I should have to defend something I already admitted was an overstatement.

When you entered the thread, as I've already quoted, you were laughing about how it would be idiotic for anyone to claim that a win in November is worth the same as a win in March. That is what you quoted from me, and I assumed that's what you were addressing (you know, since that's what you quoted). You were never addressing a point I made about the relative importance of games because since admitting my mistake, I never made any claims about that. It's all right here in this thread, and you should be able to go back and read it. You'll see I've been consistent since admitting my overstatement.

As for skewed statistics, what exactly is the problem? Zerol and billy made completely unsubstantiated claims about Al's performance against a vague set of "elite" teams. I, being completely honest about my methodology, presented his stats against the top 4 Western Conference teams. I even stated that I'd have to know what they meant by "elite" to be able to check these claims, but they didn't come forward with definitions or data. The data I presented was accurate.

The issue I had with your data is that you chose to round your numbers in such a way (contrary to standard practice) to make your argument more credible. You did so without stating that that's what you were doing.

What I did was honest and accurate. If someone didn't like how I defined "elite" teams OR how much time I was willing to put into gathering data, they could re-define the term less ambiguously and collect the data themselves. What you did was dishonest and inaccurate. Period.

So youre allowed to skew data, because there is no "convention" of how it should be represented, somehow making it honest? Whereas I round to 17 from 17.6, and therefore I am a dishonest and an inaccurate poster? Gotcha. Its funny how you poked fun at a poster for choosing a 5min OT period as an example of choosing an absurdly small sample size, and then you define "elite" by only taking his performances against the top 4 Western teams, which only seemed TOO coincidental seeing as his games against the Eastern elite teams worked against your example. To me this is an example of a dishonest comparison; now, you claim that you stated this for all of us to see (and I applaud you for the accuracy) I suppose, but in the end of the day you choosing an example like that just points at you being partially dishonest, or partially brain-dead. Not sure which one it is, in this instance.

And for the record, I at least had the decency to admit the data I used to support my argument (my rounding error) could have lead to inaccuracy, and then subsequently apologized. You seem to be valiantly clinging onto your comparison as accurate, simply because there was no convention of what elite is, which means you could skew data as much as possible. To me, that seems foolish and/or dishonest.

 

[GVC]

Its funny how you poked fun at a poster for choosing a 5min OT period as an example of choosing an absurdly small sample size, and then you define "elite" by only taking his performances against the top 4 Western teams, which only seemed TOO coincidental seeing as his games against the Eastern elite teams worked against your example. To me this is an example of a dishonest comparison; now, you claim that you stated this for all of us to see (and I applaud you for the accuracy) I suppose, but in the end of the day you choosing an example like that just points at you being partially dishonest, or partially brain-dead. Not sure which one it is, in this instance.

And for the record, I at least had the decency to admit the data I used to support my argument (my rounding error) could have lead to inaccuracy, and then subsequently apologized. You seem to be valiantly clinging onto your comparison as accurate, simply because there was no convention of what elite is, which means you could skew data as much as possible. To me, that seems foolish and/or dishonest.

I assure you, it was a coincidence. I haven't looked at the data again, and no one has presented any, so I don't even know if what you're saying about Al's performance against the top Eastern Conference teams is true. If someone is going to make a claim, they should back it up. I did some leg work. I never claimed it was perfect, but I certainly never claimed it was anything more than what it is. I didn't skew any data. All the data I posted is accurate. If you have a problem with the data, post better data (as I did in your thread). What should I be apologizing for?

Even if there were something to retract or apologize for (there isn't), I certainly wouldn't be apologizing to you. Since entering this thread, you've called me foolish, childish, dishonest and brain-dead. Further, like billy, you've consistently misrepresented what I've posted in this thread. You've acted like a little bitch. I await your apology.