NBASupes

It will not even get the Hawks close to the 2nd round. Maybe even miss the playoffs.

How can you believe otherwise? Everything analyical, video, and statistical says Al Jefferson is notorious awful defender who doesn't protect the rim, is awful at pick and roll defense, poor team defender, and is a solid man defender. What more can you believe? You just are using blind faith in hopes that a player achieves something you have no proof of otherwise. Unless you place him in a situation where he is allowed to play with an inside-outside team, he will not work. The Utah Jazz system right now is inside-out but it doesn't work because they lack a Paul Gasol, Roy Hibbert, or Vlade Divac type of player. Jefferson hasn't proven he's a very good offensive player even once in his career and he hasn't proven he is more than an awful defender. The Wolves traded him for space without intention of using it. Utah is about to let him walk and you have faith in him here where our PF is a PF and we want to sign a PF in hopes that he will be a good center because we have shooters who can't create their own offense like Jenkins and Korver. What part of the game is this?

You really don't get it do you. Jefferson best pairing is a big center with size who can protect the rim and anchor the defense. Something Al Horford has no type of ability to do. You would be misusing Jefferson and putting him in a bad situation as well as Horford. Rather have Horford with Smith again instead of Jefferson and I don't want Smith back at all. You are trying to add Jefferson strengths without accounting for his weakeness which we have no type of ability to overcome it here. I understand what you want but when you take Josh away, you take away a major part of our game and you lose it for good. So we really do not net gain with Jefferson compared to Smith.

Eminem song called stan is basically about a diehard supporter going to great lengths to support his favorite artist. In the hip hop community, instead on calling a diehard supporter a homer or a fanboy, we call him a stan.

They had better players in 09-10. VC ate us alive. They were regressing fast and had numerous bad contracts on board. They were basically the Lakers with a better fit for Dwight and less overall talent.

The Lakers turned a lot of people off of Howard. Which was the point I was making in the post above which was deleted when I transfered it over to this message board. They completely mishandled him. On defense, Dwight is not a great man defender, he is an elite help side defense who plays smart elite team defense. In LA, they had Steve Nash and Steve Blake playing matador defense. Horrible on ball defenders. Nash is also an awful team defender as well. You had Kobe gambling like a madman and constantly being a step slower than he used to be playing some pretty bad defense. You had MWP who is clearly a shell of his old self playing some awful team defense even if his man defense is decent even at this stage of his career. Gasol was one of the worst defenders in the NBA. Horrible team defender. Horrible pick and roll defender. Horrible help side defender. He was good at man defense but that's about it. Basically, the Lakers placed Howard on an island to defend. On offense, they turned Steve Nash into an spot up shooter who didn't have much off ball movement and Dwight into a garbageman. He basically became rookie AL Horford with more size and rebounding ability. As far as his hands, they have always been questionable even in Orlando but LA gave Dwight some awful entry passes. They couldn't spread the court and for the most part couldn't beat you off the dribble putting Dwight in bad situations when posting up. Look at Orlando. They could spread the court and they played well off the ball. It made it much easier. In LA, everyone stands around, no one outside of Nash is much of a threat to shoot and even then teams don't have to worry about Dwight's touches since LA isn't going to pass it to the post much, especially with Kobe in the lineup. It was just a terrible fit for Dwight. You do not need 4 shooters and Dwight to win games. You just need good players who can play great half court offense. You need a floor general, a couple shooters, a good team defender who can shoot like a Brandon Bass and Dwight. You can win it all with that. Now you add an elite floor general like CP3 and an elite system PF in Horford with shooters and Dwight and you have a team who can dominate. You are completely devaluing Dwight because of LA and saying that he wasn't that good because the system in Orlando wasn't winning titles. It wasn't the system that didn't win in Orlando, it was his supporting cast around him. They just were not good enough outside of Dwight. LA was a mess, bad fits, old, and they have egos and refuse to play sound team defense.

We can't keep Smoove if we sign Dwight and CP3. Why would you want Dwight on the same team with Smith? They really do not fit each other game and both are horrible FT shooters. They also cancel each other out on defense if Josh is at PF. Josh needs a new start, I wish him well for whatever team he signs with.

Never seen SVG as a top 3 coach but I did see him as one of the best coaches with an elite defensive scheme and someone who held all his players accountable. He was head strong too much at times and didn't always coach a smart game. Generally speaking, he's no Pop but at the same time, he could do things coaching that Pop couldn't do. He could always develop players, run the right system for his stars, and his teams played consistent Basketball and were always very focused including Dwight. I see him more as a more opinionated Mike Smith who coaches the Atlanta Falcons in Football. He might not be the best but you will get consistent production from his teams and they will play sound smart defense.

You are still getting more value if Dwight is 25 mil and Jefferson is 7 mil. One is a decent PF/C tweener who has great low post skills but offers little else outside of that and the other is an elite defensive player who can give you 18-25 PPG and elite rebounding. There is no comparison. One player is elite and the other is an engima.

Agreed. Jenkins can be a decent player for us with or without big like Dwight but with Dwight he can become a consistent good player for us.

Half of my post was deleted so sorry if it looks misplaced. All of the good stuff was deleted and I cannot retreive it. When people see Dwight's play in LA, they get somewhat disenchanted and say delusional stuff like the OP. The thing we all knew about Dwight is he has always been hotheaded. In Orlando, what many praised him of was ability to still play elite level Basketball while losing his cool. Then on the other hand you had Josh who would lose his cool, then lose us the game with a number of misfortunate plays. He has always been known as one of the smartest defensive minds in the game. Understanding timing, rotations, getting others in the right position and protecting the rim at all times when you have to account for the 3 second rule as a defensive player. In LA, we didn't see that. We saw a player who was constantly out of position having to try to clear up for one of his teammates grave mistakes and it left him on an island constantly. The average fan cannot see that therefore their blame might be Howard like the OP's blame. Once again, I do not understand the purpose of this thread. One player to me is more like Jamal Crawford while the other to me is like Kobe Bryant. The gap is insurmountable and their really should be no comparison between the two.

I am not a huge Hardaway Jr fan. I see him as a better overall talent but as a fit if we want to play smart, SAS like Basketball, I see him as a poor fit. To me, his game is like the Affalo's of the world. While I see Jenkins, his game is more like Steph Curry lite and Jeff Hornecek. He can score in numerous types of ways, has high BBIQ and his team defense is sound.

Jefferson doesn't do enough on defense and he really doesn't add a ton of value on offense. He was what we generally see as a stat based guy. While his numbers look good, it is hard to play winning Basketball with him. He basically gives you the Josh Smith conundrum without the Josh Smith level talent. As I mentioned earlier, he is simply a better SAR. That's what he is, that is what he always will be unless he is in the optimum situation like Z-Bo in Memphis. If it doesn't means Howard is better than I can tell you I am questioning some of the views posted on here. Howard has always been better. Even in his 2nd year as a 19 year old, he was a better overall player than Jefferson peak. I really think you guys are greatly overvaluing Jefferson. Nothing analytically or even visually puts these two in the same league as far as impact and talent. Nothing. You can build a championship team around Dwight. You have to have better pieces then Jefferson to build a team around Jefferson. Sorry but this is like saying you prefer Jamal Crawford over Joe Johnson. Nothing logical can really be argued, you are just being more of a fan than looking into everything else. Jefferson has some of the On/Off court stats in the NBA and for a good player, it's noticeable that his teams generally play much better defense with him on the bench since he doesn't offer a presence defensively and his offense isn't grand like Griffin in LAC his rookie year and Love in Minny during his career.

Howard lovers? The guy has carried his team to the Finals and generally his teams never win less than 50 games with mainly role players and he is a constant All NBA player. The reason why people will think you are hating is because you are hating. It's not legit complaints you are making. It is not even close. You made it seems like Dwight Howard is JaVale McGee when Dwight Howard is a very likely HOF player. Do you see why no one is agreeing with you? You compared an one trick pony big who is a good tweener to one of the best players in the NBA for the last 5 seasons? You might as well make a thread saying Teague is better than CP3. It wouldn't be too far from the tree for you.

I didn't say Howard was great offensively. Said he was very good offensively. Hence his success offensively thoughtout his career. His athletic ability is a big part of the reason why he scores a lot? Yes it is. Guess what, it was a big reason why Shaq, MJ, Kobe, Lebron, Wilt, and numerous others scored points in the NBA. Since when did it become forminble to demerit a player in Basketball because of their athletic ability? So I guess the Mark Price is a better scorer than Michael Jordan since he doesn't use his athletic ability like Michael Jordan. That statement absolutely no sense. Bynum is a great low post scorer, has an average jumper, and is solid athlete but generally he has below average BBIQ, isn't motivated, and has numerous amount of injury concerns. Please come with a better comparison because this is not it. Bynum nor Howard is a force on offense. Both have issues. Bynum is a horrible movement type of player while Howard struggles with his hands and he isn't the quickest at making a decision during the double team. This is starting to get out of hand? Do you really say Dwight is as dumb as Josh Smith. It's clear you have an agenda sir. Goodnite.

In a truthful theoretical POV, I agree that Redick is more of a liability defensively. But if you have Dwight as we seen in Orlando. Making rotations and playing smart sound team defense is all that’s needed. That will not work to great effect in Atlanta with Josh Smith or Al Horford much less most NBA teams but it worked to a T with Orlando who had Howard. My favorite Hawks defenders are John Jenkins and Kyle Korver. Now both are heavily limited defensively due to their lack of NBA defensive tools. Both do a great job playing team defense and understanding rotations especially Korver. Jenkins is still learning at times but his ability to read the lanes are really good. Teague also does a good job with team defense but since he is a PG, pick and roll defense is vital and he struggles greatly at that. Al Horford is a very good team defender and man defender. The most complete defender on our roster. Josh Smith is the most gifted. He can defend anyone with his tools. He’s the closet defender we have to Lebron but Josh misses too many rotations and can get lazy too often. Size is critical to team defense but you can’t just have any type of size like Petro or Collins. It has to be a quality center. The Centers are a staple to great defenses in the NBA and has always been. Look at all the great defenses but Miami. They all have a very good to great defensive center. What the Hawks have is a large amount of team defenders on the roster. They would fit seemingly with a Howard, Bogut, Marc Gasol, and Hibbert.

He lead a team full of role players to the NBA Finals. I am sorry what you wrote defy logic in terms of one's ability and resume. Dwight's offensive game is based around him playing smart, having solid offensive movement, usually winning his fight for positioning, a quality post game regardless if it is great or not, tip in's, put backs, and alley oops. His defense is based off of great team defense, anchoring the defense, covering for recoverable mistakes, and being a presence in the lane, as well as being very good at defending the pick and roll. His low post man defense could use some work. To say that what you wrote above is all he did in Orlando tells me you really didn't watch him play at all in Orlando.

You amazingly underrated Howard and massively overrated Jefferson. Howard is an elite team defender, has high BBIQ, is a very good offense player, good pick and roll player and is an elite defensive player and is an elite rebounder with good intangibles. Jefferson is a great low post player who has average BBIQ, a decent jumper, terrible pick and roll player and a terrible defensive player. This couldn't be a further stretch if you compared J.R. Smith to Kobe Bryant. Just an insurmountable talent and abilty gap between the two. This post move nonsense is really overstated with Dwight. Dwight has a post game and always has. He just isn't fluid and does not have a go do move. That hook he likes to do is okay but it is nothing special. His elite athletic ability makes him someone that is extremely hard to stop but he's not an elite scorer and never will be. He could still drop 20-25 points in his sleep and you cannot defend him 1v1 without a double team unless you have a great low post man defender.

Dwight wasn't the reason why LA lost games. They were just old, terrible on rotations, Gasol has been a negative player for over two years, and Steve Nash couldn't put on handprint on the team at all. It was a lot of terrible fits, old age, and limited depth equaled horrible play. I would take Dwight 10 out of 10 times over anyone on this roster right now.

He wants the max but he wants to play for a winning team. He will probably get 12-13 mil first year for 4 years. Where does he go? I do not know.

Thanks! I am worried about him as a starter due to his defensive deficiencies and his ability to beat players off the dribble but he is a very good off ball player who excels shooting off the screen, spot ups, and cutting to the hoop. If we could hide his deficiencies which aren’t possible unless we land an anchor like Dwight, we might not be able to do so. He needed last year to assimilate into NBA Basketball.

Thanks for having me.

I think him and Bynum would work like Z-bo and Gasol work. Their combined size hurts spacing and both players can put a beating on you and get players into foul trouble. Al isn't not getting anyone into foul trouble unless we somehow get a legit PG who puts Al in very good positions to score. I do not see Horford fitting at all with Jefferson. In fact, I like Smith being his running mate more. Horford is much better than any of his other teammates but Horford game is not adjecent to Jefferson game. Jefferson would be with a bigger skilled big like Z-Bo is with Marc Gasol. I personally think you are vastly overrating Jefferson. I just do not think he's very good. To me, he is a great post scorer with a decent jumper. Everything else he does isn't that impressive. He's a better version of SAR. Look at his outlook with the Jazz: Al Jefferson: 17.8 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 2.1 APG, 1.0 SPG, 1.1 BPG, 49 FG%, 77 FT%, 33 MPGDespite his 2012-13 numbers subtly dropping across the board when compared to 2011-12, Al Jefferson’s stat line is fantastic. He is a fantasy basketball stud for sure. As a one-on-one offensive player he is elite, possibly the best post player in the league. He showed durability (missing only 4 games) this year, and at times, seemed like he was getting better at kicking the ball out of the post when compared to his well-known “black hole” nick-name of the past. Al was the team’s top scorer per game & per 36 minutes. When moving toward the basket, Big Al is an offensive force that can barely be contained. However, he is often inconsistent in his game & takes a lot fade-away shots that are not nearly as effective. So why has a player as polished in the post as Al, who puts up stunning offensive numbers, and in the world of fantasy sports is a top 5 center, not even sniffed the All Star game in his career? Well, despite how great he is some areas, defensively he is about as bad as it gets. Big Al is terrible at guarding the pick & roll, doesn’t appear to put any effort into help defense opportunities, and often times seems oblivious to where the ball is & how to position himself properly on defense. The entire team seemed to be worse defensively due to Al’s negative impact. Also, Al simply does not get to the FT line despite spending a lot of time in the paint, which is unfortunate considering his nice FT% (77%). Al made some small steps forward this year, but after 9 years in the NBA & playing over 500 professional games for three different teams, he is what he is; a great isolation post player who appears to be a good teammate & nice guy, but also doesn’t help teams win (only 11 total playoff game appearances in his career). This is mostly due to his defensive shortcomings and the way that his team typically has to slow down the offense for him to be effective, often times creating a situation where the other 4 guys simply watch Al when he gets the ball. I’m wishing Al all the luck in the world as he moves forward in his career. The question is, will it be in Utah, or will it be for a different team?

Read this: There is a lot of interesting conversation taking place among Jazz fans on the value of Al Jefferson. I wanted to weigh in on that since it is something I have thought a lot about, and since the point will likely soon become moot. Here’s a comment from ESPN Insider Amin Elhassan, made as part of his analysis of the top free agents for the summer of 2013 that I think perfectly sums up the problem of Al Jefferson: “How can a player with a career PER more than 20 be valued so low? [Jefferson ranked 8th] First, Jefferson gets a hit for not winning. He’s been paid like a franchise player, yet his teams have not achieved consistent playoff appearances. I’m not putting it all on Jefferson, but he’s got to have a more positive impact on his team’s win-loss percentage.” Jefferson is the ultimate conundrum for a guy that loves box score stats as a measure of value (guilty as charged) because his production, even in advanced metrics, does not translate into WINS the way it should. He is outstanding in the individual metrics, he really is. I looked at the last 6 years worth of advanced stats and found that if you take a combined average of Hollinger’s metrics of PER, Value Added, and Estimated Wins Added Jefferson was a top 5 NBA center in all but one of those seasons. The one he wasn’t in the top 5 was the year he was recovering from reconstructive knee surgery and he was still top 10. That puts him in some pretty impressive company. Using Hollinger’s advanced metrics it is fairly easy to argue that Al Jefferson has been a top 5 NBA center for the last 6 years thanks to his combination of durability and box score production. Yet, in spite of that durability and production he is currently struggling to manage only the second winning season in those 6 seasons, and it is even more perplexing given the fact that Center is universally considered the weakest position in terms of depth and quality of players in the NBA (just ask the All-Star Selection committee). Jefferson’s numbers, his pay, and his role he has had on his teams over the last 6 years indicate that he is being viewed and played as one of the, if not the one, best players on those teams. As Mr. Elhassan pointed out we can’t hang all that on Big Al, but the results beg the question: How much is Al Jefferson contributing to his teams winning? After looking at the various metrics and thinking about the question I decided the best way to answer was to compare the team’s performance as a whole with Jefferson on the court, versus the team performance overall. A default assumption for the best player on a team should be that their presence on the court makes the team BETTER, because if it doesn’t, then they clearly aren’t impacting the games the way a good player usually does. The opposite assumption should also hold, replacing the team’s best player with another “less good” player should result in the team being “less good”. Another critical assumption is that no player can play all the minutes at his position in a season (which is true unless your name is Wilt Chamberlain). So, given those assumptions, and by the law of averages, one would have to conclude that the team’s performance with the best player on the court will be better than its overall performance which is a combination of his efforts and those of other lesser players. With with that in mind, I set out to gather that data. Using the wonderful 82games.com and Basketball-reference.com I have compiled a comparison of the last 6 years for Al Jefferson and his teams. This was done using difference between the Offensive and Defensive ratings for Jefferson ON COURT only (OnOff-OnDef=NetOnEff), and comparing them to the overall Offensive and Defensive efficiency ratings of the team for the year (OffEff-DefEff=NetEff). As I said previously, for a team’s best player and especially a player that produces box score numbers as impressive as Jefferson’s, the expectation would be that the team would be better when was on the court, for the simple fact that his replacement, whether by individual or committee, could not match his production or level of play. You can see from the graph that in 4 out of the 6 years the team’s performance was worse in the time that Jefferson was on the court than it was overall. The two years where Jefferson was better than the team overall were the year he only played 50 games before blowing out his knee, and last year during the lockout season. I would argue that those were his two best statistical seasons, so it does pass the eye test that those would be the seasons he added the most value, and the fact that he played with the same team before and after both of those seasons adds credence to the assertion that a players value relative to his team is mostly tied to his performance and not that of his team. Just for comparison, and to verify that my assumptions were not terribly flawed I also generated similar graphs for 5 other centers. Four of those , according to Hollingers metrics, are Jeffersons peers, some of the best centers in the NBA, Pau and Marc Gasol, Al Horford, and Chris Bosh. For the last I tried to find a center that has been a starting center but is just considered average at best by most everybody, the anti-Jefferson, Samuel Dalembert. The difference here is striking, and appears to confirm both the hypothesis that good players make teams better when they are on the court, and the one that Jefferson, in spite of his gaudy numbers, often fails to positively impact the game in a meaningful way. He comes out looking more like the other one dimensional player included in this analysis than the other “top tier” players that share his gaudy numbers and income tax bracket. Any data set is subject to interpretation, and you may draw your own conclusions, but the conclusion I draw from the data that I looked at (a subset of which is presented in the graphs) is that Jefferson’s positives (offensive efficiency and rebounding) typically do not outweigh his negatives (defense or lack thereof), this is evidenced by the fact that the team’s performance with him on the court is typically not better than its overall performance, indicating that as a net product he is either negatively impacting that performance or having no impact at all. Now I’d like to give a quick nod to a couple of the most common complaints I hear about criticisms of Jefferson. The first is that basketball is a team game, and the team numbers represent the combined performance of 5 guys and not just Jefferson. I addressed this briefly above, regardless of the other 4 guys on the court, the unit your best player (especially if that best player is a 20/10 Center) is playing with should be one of your better units, and given that most starting units include at least 2 or 3 of the teams 5 best players one would expect those units to perform above the overall team average regardless of the competition. If that is not true then the word “best” doesn’t mean what I think it means. The second is that the two seasons he had a positive influence are proof that he can have a positive influence in the right situation. That may be true, but looking at the examples I provided (admitted small sample size) indicates that other players with production similar to his have positive margins regardless of their situations. I would also argue that the argument that a payer requires “the right situation” to make a positive impact is actually just an admission that their game is not good enough to stand on its own. When you talk about putting players in “the right situation” so they can help a team you are talking about a role player, really good players are good regardless of whom you surround them with. In closing I thought I would throw out this last chart, as I thought it might be pertinent to another related discussion taking place in Jazz Nation right now…

I really do not like the lateral moves. Not a fan of Al Jefferson. Low post dominate style like Z-Bo but isn't the passer that Z-bo is and we do not have a true center to run an inside-out system. We would just become East coast Utah. Not sold on Teague as a championship starting PG unless it's on a stacked team like Miami. This team is built for the 8th seed without Smith but with Smith, they are a 5-7 seed team as it is the same with Jefferson if not worse. Al Jefferson defense is not good at all. I do not see the advange of signing Al. I think he would be a better fit in Houston or Philly if they had Bynum. That would make sense. Atlanta doesn't make sense for Jefferson. Atlanta needs to be looking at true centers. Not adding more PF's.