Aschburner: Al Awarded "Offensive" Defensive POY

[shrink]

Bitter Steve Achburner:

http://m.si.com/news/wr/wr/detail/15268 ... nsilive10i

OFFENSIVE DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Al Jefferson, Minnesota Timberwolves

That's offensive, as in "unpleasant." Repugnant even. And defensive as in "Ole!" Actually, judging the defensive acumen of most NBA players is best left to the coaches, which makes me wonder why those guys are granted the authority to select the NBA All-Defensive squads while the same old writers and broadcasters vote for top defensive player.

EXECUTIVE ASSISTS LEADER: Joe Dumars, Detroit Pistons

Last season, this was hotly contested. Both Memphis' Chris Wallace and Minnesota's Kevin McHale were deserving, the former for gifting Pau Gasol to the Lakers and the latter for delivering Garnett to his pal Danny Ainge in Boston. This year, Dumars is a runaway winner after sending Chauncey Billups home to Denver for Iverson. Billups will get a lot of fifth-place votes for league MVP after the order he imposed on the Nuggets' attack, while Iverson, well, we've already dealt with that. Maneuvering for cap space is one thing, but when a plan for the future so undermines the present -- at a place where they're accustomed to better -- the price paid can be too high.

Some guys just can't get over the past girlfriend that did them wrong. To me, that's Asch. Wasted basketball mind. He can't even talk about what happened this year without sliding in a slam at McHale, or knocking Jefferson. I' think the only reason we didn't hear about Ndudi Ebi in his bad rookie discussion isn't because it was five years ago, but because he painted himself in a corner by saying "lottery" and Ebi was the #26 pick.

[casey]

Either that or Al is a terrible defender and the trade McHale made was the biggest reason the Celtics won it all last year.

[Calinks]

Can't catch a break. At least Kenny Smith gave Al a decent reward.

[revprodeji]

I thought Al improved on def. He still has miles to go, but I think he did improve. Our defensive struggles are more a result from the crappy 1-3 defense, then the average defense at our 4-5.

[jade_hippo]

i'm not sure about you, but i'd rather read news instead of how Jordan and Drexler would have dominated the NBA for 15 years instead of Sam Bowie's reign as king. At some point we need to give up all the hindsight and how if we made a different choice we would be dominant. Yes it is a shame the Lakers left MN, yes its a shame RudyTJ got punched in the face, yes its a shame Magic got AIDS and Bird had a bad back... but we still have probably the most dominant low post player scorer in the game and we got him for KG, that is a very good start if you ask me. (we also drafted Paul Grant, Will Avery, Mario Chalmers, Brandon Roy, Marcus Taylor, Doug West, Rasho, Jerome Allen, Ray Allen, Gerald Glass, Felton Spencer, Sherron Mills, Loren Woods, Luc Longly, JR Rider, and Gary Leanord and how many of them were great for us? So... now that we have that covered, we can end this)

[Rakocevicftw]

Last year's best assist was Portland letting OKC get Durant.

[deeney0]

I thought Al improved on def. He still has miles to go, but I think he did improve. Our defensive struggles are more a result from the crappy 1-3 defense, then the average defense at our 4-5.

Tiny improvements, maybe, but not nearly the the extent he needs to improve to help this team win.

[casey]

Last year's best assist was Portland letting OKC get Durant.

I don't know about that.

[mnWI]

Last year's best assist was Portland letting OKC get Durant.

Not that you know anything, but Steve Patterson drafted Martell Webster, and overruled his assistant GM Kevin Pritchard at the time, who wanted to draft Chris Paul...

[revprodeji]

I wish I could find some stats to show Al on def from last year to this year.

[JMillott]

That is a laughable selection to pick Al Jefferson for that award, he isn't even close to the worst defensive player on the Wolves. He is a natural PF playing out of position at C and more often then not he was doing it without even a true PF to help him defend the paint.

Combine that with him clearly being the teams best offensive player and its not like Al Jefferson could just take the fouls and make players earn it at the line.

This is why i'm so strongly in favor of drafting Hasheem Thabeet in the lottery, not only does it allow Jefferson to play with a huge physical advantage against most PF's but more importantly he won't be the only true PF/C on the court hardly ever anymore.

In order to play him at PF this year they had to use the completely useless Jason Collins who isn't more then average defensively and is utterly useless as an offensive player. If they didn't have the completely useless Telfair at PG they could've perhaps gotten away with having Collins start at center without being too awful offensively but you can't play two terrible offensive players unless they are absolute stud defenders which Collins and Telfair obviously are not.

Get a real PG like Sessions to make the offense better and they'll be good enough offensively to play Thabeet and Brewer together at times which would actually give them a very good defensive team. If a team has nobody who really requires Brewer to slow them down then you give Miller more minutes and blow them out of the building with offense.

[casey]

Combine that with him clearly being the teams best offensive player and its not like Al Jefferson could just take the fouls and make players earn it at the line.

I think the point is that he's a really good player but a bad defender.

[mandurugo]

Either that or Al is a terrible defender and the trade McHale made was the biggest reason the Celtics won it all last year.

I'm leaning this way.

[JMillott]

Combine that with him clearly being the teams best offensive player and its not like Al Jefferson could just take the fouls and make players earn it at the line.

I think the point is that he's a really good player but a bad defender.

My point is that he is a quality defender at his natural PF position being asked to both be the man offensively which requires him to stay out of foul trouble and at the other end he was asked to anchor the defense playing out of position at center and more often then not being asked to do so without even a true PF to share the load on a team that also had no impact perimeter defenders either after Brewer went down.

He was not put in a position where the reasonable expectation was for him to be successful at both roles. It makes no more sense to lay the blame on him then it did to lay the blame on Kevin Garnett for the teams inability to have success in his last few seasons when he didn't have a quality team around him.

The Wolves this year wouldn't have been much more successful if you traded Al Jefferson for Dwight Howard. They still wouldn't have been a good defensive team and they still wouldn't have made a run at the playoffs.

You simply can't ask a PF to play out of position at C without at least giving him a legit PF to play next to and expect him to have success doing so defensively. Having him play with the the undersized Gomes and Smith wasn't going to cut it.

That blame should fall squarely on the coaching staff and the front office for not having the proper pieces in place to give their star a reasonable chance to succeed. The Wolves scored more points per 100 possesions with Jefferson and they gave up fewer points per 100 possesions with him then without him which quite frankly shows its not his fault pretty clearly.

[revprodeji]

he is a better defender at the 4, but he is a much better offensive player at the 5. The Net diff is much better at the 5 than the 4.

Can we find a way for him to be defender by 5 but let him defend 4's?

You ask about a legit 4 to play with Jefferson. Do you think Love will make Jefferson a better defender? What about adding a healthy Brewer?

[casey]

My point is that he is a quality defender at his natural PF position

And you base this on what?

The Wolves scored more points per 100 possesions with Jefferson and they gave up fewer points per 100 possesions with him then without him which quite frankly shows its not his fault pretty clearly.

That what isn't his fault?

[revprodeji]

He is a better statistical defender at the 4 than the 5, but not by much and not near the hit his offense takes. I also think the difference in his defensive stats from 4 to 5 is based more on playing with a big rather than with cookie/Gomes.

We simply do not know how Love/Jefferson will play together, we have not seen it enough this year and that bothers me.

[JMillott]

Either that or Al is a terrible defender and the trade McHale made was the biggest reason the Celtics won it all last year.

I'm leaning this way.

Here is the truth.

Getting Al Jefferson and the expiring Theo Ratliff for Kevin Garnett was about the best you could've hoped for.

Getting Sebastion Telfair and Ryan Gomes is also fine and dandy as long as he idenified them for what they are which they obviously have not done. They are both bottom of the rotation players with Gomes ideally being a 8th man combo forward and Telfair being the type of PG you play behind a starting PG who can push the tempo for the 8-12 minutes a night you need to rest the starter.

Now Telfair starting at PG was unavoidable due to the lack of any other PG on the roster who was any better which is clearly one of the two most pressing needs for the team this summer. But that simply isn't the case with Ryan Gomes when the Wolves had a superior SF on the roster in Mike Miller and a superior PF as well in Kevin Love.

It is simply insane that the Wolves best lineup played a combined 48 minutes together (Telfair, Foye, Miller, Love, Jefferson) and posted a +19 in basically a games worth of playing time together?

[revprodeji]

I agree that Gomes is best suited off the bench right now, and so is Bassy, but Miller is hardly a superior SF. He actually struggled at the SF this year compared to his SG play.

Our hope is either that we trade for a legit SF or that Brewer can take the job by Christmas. Gomes is a very good bench SF, but simply not aggressive or consistent enough for the starting spot.

[Rakocevicftw]

Not that you know anything, but Steve Patterson drafted Martell Webster, and overruled his assistant GM Kevin Pritchard at the time, who wanted to draft Chris Paul...

Did he also trade Foye for Roy?