Al Horford Has Been Disappointing

[Admin]

Lol. So I'm a hater for sharing my opinion on the obvious? Wow....

You're a "hater" for the cheap shot at calling him timid. That was the type of weak insult that you guys who hate Al loved to use in his first few years and thankfully it had gone away as it was nonsense and here you go bringing it back. I'd love to see you walk into a dark alley with Al and call him timid!

[Admin]

His per minute rebounding is down and are at career lows. His rebound percentage is also at career lows. I am ignoring his 11 game season two years ago and I'm also putting a disclaimer that it is still early.Al's general lack of rebounding could be due to him attempting to defend the paint more now that we don't have a shot blocker. He could be bailing on his rebounding responsibilities to try and defend the paint. He is at a career high for blocks per minute by a good margin, but it is not much more than "pretty good" compared to league average for bigs. I think we are just seeing that Al is not someone who can be both a great rebounder and a defensive presence in the paint. Shocking, huh? Even when he focuses on one of those areas he is not elite and now he appears to be trying to do both.Lack of effort could be an issue with Al. I look at free throw shooting as a general proxy for that. See my arguments with AHF for more details on that but Al is in the middle of a guaranteed contract that pays a lot and ever since he signed the extension his free throw percentage has been pathetic for someone with such a high jump shot fg%. We also have a quote from a Schröder article that claims Al is the first to leave practice. We also have Al coming off an injury to his boobs, I mean pectoral muscle. So it could be an injury issue. But if it was an injury issue, shouldn't we see his jump shot fg% decline as well?Hard to say, but Al is playing less minutes and has lower output per minute (and per available opportunities) in rebounding. Generally one thinks of those as hustle stats. So there is mounting evidence for the lack of hustle argument. But gosh darn it if it wasn't for this still being early in the year (so the differences may just be noise) and for his responsibilities on this team changing. Hard to say.

Al's never been a big hustle guy and I have no idea about his work ethic but I've never really pictured him as someone who puts in more work than everyone else. What's the average FT % for C's in the league right now? I know he's bad but I doubt he's too far off the league average for his position. It's really seeming like an epidemic how bad C's have become about shooting FT's. Just like Bob mentioned in the game the other night we should go back to 2 for 1 and 3 for 2 days and that would force guys to become better FT shooters.

As to the rebounding I just think it's a system thing. I may be pulling this out of my butt, but (haha) if I had to guess I'd say that the Spurs are probably among the league leaders in rebounds by their 2's and 3's and it's because of the design to allow for team rebounding. Another thing might be that Al played 18% of the teams minutes at PF last year whereas he's only played 4% of our minutes there this year. That may have allowed him more freedom to rebound at that position although I don't know for sure just spit balling.

[NBASupes]

Outside of the Teague is better than Al foolishness, most of the posts on the 2nd page have been amazing. I agree with some of the good and bad. I too was at a lost of words when I seen Al was the last in-first out when Smoove regardless of what you think was the first in-last out and worked harder than anyone and same for Dennis. Al is what he is on offense. He is a movement player. He is a PnP expert, and he can dominate nonathletic PF's in the post but other than that, he isn't no superstar at all and we don't have a John Stockton on this roster. The best we got is Dennis who is much too raw to be reliable at this point of his career.

[Guest]

Al's never been a big hustle guy and I have no idea about his work ethic but I've never really pictured him as someone who puts in more work than everyone else. What's the average FT % for C's in the league right now? I know he's bad but I doubt he's too far off the league average for his position. It's really seeming like an epidemic how bad C's have become about shooting FT's. Just like Bob mentioned in the game the other night we should go back to 2 for 1 and 3 for 2 days and that would force guys to become better FT shooters. As to the rebounding I just think it's a system thing. I may be pulling this out of my butt, but (haha) if I had to guess I'd say that the Spurs are probably among the league leaders in rebounds by their 2's and 3's and it's because of the design to allow for team rebounding. Another thing might be that Al played 18% of the teams minutes at PF last year whereas he's only played 4% of our minutes there this year. That may have allowed him more freedom to rebound at that position although I don't know for sure just spit balling.

I don't think looking at ft% for the average C is helpful because what one would care about is a player's true ft% + practice increase/decrease + randomness. At least that is what I have put out as important in my arguments.

[Sothron]

To the free throw percentage, to back up my point:

GP GS MIN FGM-A FG% 3PM-A 3P% FTM-A FT% OR DR REB AST BLK STL PF TO PTS '07-'08

[*] [*]ATL

81 77 31.4 4.1-8.2 .499 0.0-0.1 .000 1.9-2.6 .731 3.1 6.6 9.7 1.5 0.9 0.7 3.3 1.7 10.1 '08-'09

[*] [*]ATL

67 67 33.5 4.7-8.9 .525 0.0-0.0 .000 2.2-3.1 .727 2.2 7.2 9.3 2.4 1.4 0.8 2.8 1.5 11.5 '09-'10

[*] [*]ATL

81 81 35.1 5.8-10.5 .551 0.0-0.0 1.000 2.6-3.3 .789 2.9 7.0 9.9 2.3 1.1 0.7 2.8 1.5 14.2 '10-'11

[*] [*]ATL

77 77 35.1 6.7-12.0 .557 0.0-0.1 .500 1.9-2.4 .798 2.4 7.0 9.3 3.5 1.0 0.8 2.5 1.5 15.3 '11-'12

[*] [*]ATL

11 11 31.6 5.2-9.4 .553 0.0-0.1 .000 2.0-2.7 .733 2.4 4.6 7.0 2.2 1.3 0.9 1.9 1.5 12.4

And then the last two seasons including this year in progress:

'12-'13

[*] [*]ATL

74 74 37.2 7.8-14.3 .543 0.0-0.1 .500 1.8-2.8 .644 2.6 7.6 10.2 3.2 1.1 1.1 2.2 2.0 17.4 '13-'14

[*] [*]ATL

18 18 32.6 7.5-13.6 .551 0.1-0.3 .200 1.9-3.0 .648 1.8 6.2 8.0 2.4 1.8 1.1 1.9 2.4 17.0

Clearly Al has went from being a very good (for a big man) free throw shooter to an average one (for a big) at this point. The pectoral surgery I think has altered his mechanics and he hasn't found either a way to go back to his old shooting style or adapt to what his body can do now. I have a feeling it is more mental than physical but there it is. Al pre injury was very good at free throws, Al post injury has not been good at free throws.

[Admin]

I don't think looking at ft% for the average C is helpful because what one would care about is a player's true ft% + practice increase/decrease + randomness. At least that is what I have put out as important in my arguments.

Looks like I was wrong anyway, he's near the bottom among qualified C's in FT%.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/free-throws/sort/freeThrowPct/position/centers

Look who's #1 at 93%, medium Z!

[willthepureshooter]

You're a "hater" for the cheap shot at calling him timid. That was the type of weak insult that you guys who hate Al loved to use in his first few years and thankfully it had gone away as it was nonsense and here you go bringing it back. I'd love to see you walk into a dark alley with Al and call him timid!

Lol@ cheap shot. Child please.. I'm pretty sure I would be very comfortable with Horford in a dark alley. I would probably emerge from the alley wearing his game day uniform, a pair of gators, and his fiance as the getaway driver. Reach back into the backseat for a cold brew and then hangout the window yelling "Hail Southern" while we speed down I-285 bumpin "I ain't worried about nothin." Edited December 2, 2013 by willthepureshooter

[Admin]

Lol@ cheap shot. Child please.. I'm pretty sure I would be very comfortable with Horford in a dark alley. I would probably emerge from the alley wearing his game day uniform, a pair of gators, and his fiance as the getaway driver. Reach back into the backseat for a cold brew and then hangout the window yelling "Hail Southern" while we speed down I-285 bumpin "I ain't worried about nothin."

It is a cheap shot to say he's timid or lacks heart or any of the other ridiculous things that have been said. The rest of your reply here was funny though I'll give you that.

[MaceCase]

Looks like I was wrong anyway, he's near the bottom among qualified C's in FT%.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/free-throws/sort/freeThrowPct/position/centers

Look who's #1 at 93%, medium Z!

Must be a Florida thing. Too busy focused on academics or something.

[Admin]

Must be a Florida thing. Too busy focused on academics or something.

Or maybe he was involved in gun running, as that's a popular Gator thing as well.

[willthepureshooter]

If Horford was in Mortal Kombat his finisher would be a "jab step, jab step, jab step, match over.." lol

[MaceCase]

Or maybe he was involved in gun running, as that's a popular Gator thing as well.

Between Al and Noah's French and Dominican connection, they'd be unstoppable!

[Admin]

Between Al and Noah's French and Dominican connection, they'd be unstoppable!

Not to mention Aaron Hernandez's Mexican connection!

[Admin]

If Horford was in Mortal Kombat his finisher would be a "jab step, jab step, jab step, match over.." lol

[willthepureshooter]

Lol