RealGM

Apparently Al Jefferson can't guard an old ladies purse, but I can't really find any definitive stats to back this up. Can we put together a comprehensive list of statistic to either confirm or refute all of these claims?

Here's a game log of Nazr Mohammed getting 21/20 against him

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=300210016

Is there any shooting % against stat?

Or a comprehensive look at the guy he guards in terms of production versus his average?

82games does PER against

I think Hoopsdata does head to head stuff, but last time I checked they had Love and Jefferson's match ups switched

Here's a link to defensive PPP data from Synergy Sports for our main bigs. This reflects man defense, not help defense though.

http://www.canishoopus.com/2010/4/20/14 ... d-to-darko

Would it help to do a PER, PER Against and the difference for each staring C/PF in the league?

Yeah, 82 games has Per against, and Love is better than Al at pf on defense, but surprisingly Al has a higher per than Love at pf. Al is positive at C and PF (+3.3 at PF, and +1.6 at Center), Love is +4.9 at pf and at center he's -7.5 but he barely played at center(only 2% of all the minutes). Either way, we have to get rid of one. I'm leaning towards keeping Love, but wouldn't be upset with either one.

So far 09/10 Al Jefferson is pretty meh, but 08/09 Jefferson is stacking up pretty decently against a lot of these guys.

If this is an accurate measure than Noah is overrated, Nellie ball rears it's ugly head, and Ben Wallace sucked hard.

Huh, pretty weird what Al did last season at center, and then this season there. He was a beast at center last season..+7.1 at center, where he played most of his minutes. I'm sure it has to do with the system, and the fact he didn't have most of his explosiveness back yet. I'm torn on who to keep, I have a feeling the one we trade will end up being the wrong one.. :S

Half way done, so far 08/09 Al Jefferson is more efficient at Center than the following. (vs others stats from this past season). 09/10 Al Jefferson seemed to take a hit efficiency wise.

Andrew Bogut
Shaquille O'Neal
Nazr Mohammed
Andrew Bynum
Al Horford
Marc Gasol
Nene
Zach Randolph
Joakim Noah
Marcus Camby
Udonis Haslem
Al Jefferson (09/10)
Brendan Haywood
Jermaine O'Neal
Kendrick Perkins
Anthony Randolph
Chris Kaman
Erick Dampier
Jason Maxiell
Kenyon Martin
Brad Miller
Roy Hibbert
Ronny Turiaf
Hasheem Thabeet
Ben Wallace
Tyson Chandler
Darko Milicic
Chris Andersen
Troy Murphy
David Andersen
DeAndre Jordan
Chuck Hayes
Andris Biedrins
Ryan Hollins

According to 82games:

I'd like to get 08-09 Jefferson back. 09-10 Jefferson + 16 for 08-09 Jefferson? Maybe throw in Hollins?

funkatron101 wrote:According to 82games:

That chart also shows that Hollins and Darko absolutely sucked ass last year. I'm cooling on bringing Darko back.

Despite all the rhetoric Love/Jefferson was by far our best starting front court. This is backed up not only by every statistical measure, but also the wins/losses. People bring up defense, but Darko's individual defense was way worse than Jefferson's, and light years behind Love's. Hard to argue your a positive force for your team when the team is 4 pts worse when your on the court. Hollins made us a laughably bad 10 pts worse!

I would also like to point to the last month or so before Al got injured the team was really starting to click- with the two guys who now can't possibly play together playing together! The best 5-man +/- unit also somehow featured these 2 individuals.

I'll take actual evidence vs the diktats of Kahn and Zen Master Jr. any day of the week. Love/Al isn't ideal, but it's actually the best option on the current roster by a large margin. Al/Darko or Al/Hollins did not show the way forward by any means. Those units stunk.

Well usually when you have your best players on the court, you have better results and nobody is arguing that Al and Love are by far the best frontcourt players on the team.

To be fair to Darko he was a) brought in in the middle of the season so he had less time to learn the system, b) out of shape, and c) playing more minutes late in the season when everyone else had already packed it in. I'm not saying he is a savior or worth a ton of money but he would be worth bringing back at a reasonable price.

The question is, can this be considered a legitimate argument for Al's defense? Everyone is rated Per 48 minutes, and I know a lot of people roll their eyes at that.

Basically the next time someone wants to spout off that Al is such a huge defensive liability, I would like to give them some proof to the contrary.

Sorry funky. Wasn't trying to sidetrack.

Is this helpful?
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... der_by=dws

He's racked up defensive win shares of 2.3, 2.0, and 2.9 the last three season, which ranks him roughly in the top 20% of forwards and centers.

So, 2.3 DWS last season, which would put him #16 out of roughly 60 centers.

According to BasketballValue.com, Jefferson rates as a -6.45 adjusted defensive +/- player for the 09-10 season. This is pretty bad. However he's a +1.17 for the past two years combined. This is okay.

http://basketballvalue.com/teamplayers.php?team=MIN&year=2009-2010

Description of adjusted plus-minus:
Plus-Minus results adjusted to account for both the teammates and the opponents on the floor with a player over the course of the season. This value is based on one year of data. During the playoffs, the analysis includes the regular season as well and weights possessions in the playoffs at 2x the weight of the regular season. Additional information on how these adjusted +/- ratings are calculated has been published on 82games.com

i don't mean to be the guy with the porcupine at the baloon parade, but no matter what your stats say he's still isn't going to be an ideal defensive player. He's a short center and he's an unathletic PF in addition to him really just lacking effort at that end. I love Al and I hope we keep him, but regardless of any numbers you have that say he's decent, I still expect way more from him.

His defensive rating (from basketball reference) was 108. League average for each team's aggregated players was 107.6.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jeffeal01.html


Note that the Wolves as a team came in 28th in DRating, with 111.6.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2010.html