Jefferson's Mythical January

[AQuintus]

Recently, with the talks about trading Jefferson, I've seen a couple of people distraught over the thought of moving Jefferson cite his production while playing with good wings as a reason to keep him. Each time Jefferson's January stretch before his ACL tear was mentioned. This bugged me because I've looked up the numbers before at Basketball Reference, and based on just looking at them, they didn't seem much better than his usual. So, being the giant nerd that I am, I took the time to check to see if I was wrong. I added up all of his game numbers and averaged them out.

These are his stats for the 19 games before his injury (14 in January, and 5 in February), his season averages for 08-09, and his season averages for 07-08 (when he played all 82 games):



As you can see, Jefferson wasn't a better scorer in that stretch and he wasn't more efficient. In fact, most of his numbers were worse than his season averages.

The team won a higher percentage of their games in that stretch than their average for that year, but I'm not sure that you can attribute many of those wins to Al (his offense at least).

[revprodeji]

If I remember correctly, the January was partially because Foye went off. Can you check this?

[JMillott]

What you're not grasping is that Jefferson was playing good basketball already it was during this time that Foye, Love, Gomes and Smith all happened to give him help at the same time. Al Jefferson already playing 22/11 basketball but without quality support that simply isn't going to get it done.

After that 10-4 stretch teams adjusted to give more attention to those guys and brought most of them back to earth but by taking that extra attention away from Jefferson he started going ape **** in Febuary to the tune of 25 PPG on 55% shooting right before the acl injury.

Even with a bad team around him Jefferson was putting up 22/11 basketball with a 23 PER as the focus of the defense and scouting reports at age 22-24 as soon as teams paid any attention to his teammates he started playing on par with Amare, Yao, Bosh, Dirk, etc.

A healthy Jefferson has shown that level of play when he's had real help on the floor, nobody else on the roster has a ceiling even close to 25/12. Hell nobody on the roster has shown a ceiling of his proven 22/11 basketball, in other words his likely floor as a player is likely higher then anyone elses ceiling save Rubio's.

[revprodeji]

I do not like the idea of selling him for jack either, but why do you think we are so motivated to do it?

[Krapinsky]

Jefferson did have a cluster of huge games during that period, which was out of the ordinary and made that month really standout. He had a few duds too though.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I'll I know is I've seen Al outplay every up and coming and all star bigman in the NBA except Dwight, don't trade him for peanuts

[the_bruce]

Al is by far my favorite player to watch in the NBA. Nobody demands that much attention. You can't triple team wing players. Al rarely touches the ball without being instantly doubled. He's made out to be far worse a defender than he is. Love is a much worse man defender, and when playing with Darko I think Al played much better team defense at the end of the season when compared to love.

[urinesane]

I do not like the idea of selling him for jack either, but why do you think we are so motivated to do it?

Kahn has only been here for post injury Jefferson, and maybe he didn't see his game much before his injury? I really hope this isn't the case, but it seems like it sometimes.

[AQuintus]

If I remember correctly, the January was partially because Foye went off. Can you check this?

Here's Foye's stats from the same time periods:



Stats fairly similar to his season averages, but in that stretch he was much more efficient as a scorer.

Edit:

What you're not grasping is that Jefferson was playing good basketball already it was during this time that Foye, Love, Gomes and Smith all happened to give him help at the same time. Al Jefferson already playing 22/11 basketball but without quality support that simply isn't going to get it done.

And what you're not grasping is that despite better wing (and team) play, Jefferson wasn't a more efficient or better scorer. He was the exact same inefficient, volume scoring, black hole that he's always been.

[JMillott]

I do not like the idea of selling him for jack either, but why do you think we are so motivated to do it?

Because Kahn and Rambis have seen almost all of Love's minutes playing next to an NBA quality center be it Jefferson or Darko with him getting to play exclusively at his natural position. Love was able to play almost 1,400 out of his 1,714 minutes playing his natural position next to a quality center either Jefferson or Darko which sets him up to look good.

They only got to see a less then 100% (less then 75% as good as he is healthy) Jefferson and they saw almost half his minutes (1,300+ out of 2,463) playing next to garbage like Hollins, Pecker-off or Gomes in the frontcourt and about (800 out of the 1,100 other minutes) playing out of position with Love at PF leaving a whopping (200 out of 2463) minutes playing his natural position next to a real NBA center in Darko.

How is that not going to vastly favor Love's advanced team success stats? Don't get me wrong either i'm not bashing Love here he is a good PF and would easily start for many teams in this league but Jefferson would start for more of them and will rightly start in front of him if they're both here and given a fair shot at the job.

[JMillott]

If I remember correctly, the January was partially because Foye went off. Can you check this?

Here's Foye's stats from the same time periods:



Stats fairly similar to his season averages, but in that stretch he was much more efficient as a scorer.

Edit:

What you're not grasping is that Jefferson was playing good basketball already it was during this time that Foye, Love, Gomes and Smith all happened to give him help at the same time. Al Jefferson already playing 22/11 basketball but without quality support that simply isn't going to get it done.

And what you're not grasping is that despite better wing (and team) play, Jefferson wasn't a more efficient or better scorer. He was the exact same inefficient, volume scoring, black hole that he's always been.

Yeah those two years with the +6 PER Differential, 23 PER and 22/11 basketball were totally holding back the Wolves.

[change]

I do not like the idea of selling him for jack either, but why do you think we are so motivated to do it?

Because Kahn and Rambis have seen almost all of Love's minutes playing next to an NBA quality center be it Jefferson or Darko with him getting to play exclusively at his natural position. Love was able to play almost 1,400 out of his 1,714 minutes playing his natural position next to a quality center either Jefferson or Darko which sets him up to look good.

They only got to see a less then 100% (less then 75% as good as he is healthy) Jefferson and they saw almost half his minutes (1,300+ out of 2,463) playing next to garbage like Hollins, Pecker-off or Gomes in the frontcourt and about (800 out of the 1,100 other minutes) playing out of position with Love at PF leaving a whopping (200 out of 2463) minutes playing his natural position next to a real NBA center in Darko.

How is that not going to vastly favor Love's advanced team success stats? Don't get me wrong either i'm not bashing Love here he is a good PF and would easily start for many teams in this league but Jefferson would start for more of them and will rightly start in front of him if they're both here and given a fair shot at the job.

Do you really not understand why we'd rather keep Love? He's 21 years old. Jefferson will be 28-30 by the time we are ready to compete.

[JMillott]

Yes, by all means a 26 year old is too old to build a team around. I mean now that they've actually got a real 9-10 man rotation in place and all the dead money off the books with a potential franchise caliber PG set to come over in a year they really couldn't possibly build a team on Jefferson's time table.............

Do you guys have any idea how (Please Use More Appropriate Word) the argument against keeping Jefferson at least until the deadline is? Do you understand that taking Wesley Johnson over Demarcus Cousins only makes sense because they already had a proven version of Cousins without the attitude issues on the roster?

Do you understand that trading for an elite spot up three point shooter in Webster makes so much less sense without the fantastic post scoring PF/C?

[jordananderson]

Yes, by all means a 26 year old is too old to build a team around. I mean now that they've actually got a real 9-10 man rotation in place and all the dead money off the books with a potential franchise caliber PG set to come over in a year they really couldn't possibly build a team on Jefferson's time table.............

Do you guys have any idea how (Please Use More Appropriate Word) the argument against keeping Jefferson at least until the deadline is? Do you understand that taking Wesley Johnson over Demarcus Cousins only makes sense because they already had a proven version of Cousins without the attitude issues on the roster?

Do you understand that trading for an elite spot up three point shooter in Webster makes so much less sense without the fantastic post scoring PF/C?

They would rather use the rest of the team to build around, not one guy. Its also a bit of a stretch to call Webster an "elite spot up three point shooter", it sounds more like we got him because of his defense, but he does come with a shot. Webster and Wesley will mesh well together. We have never had a player to the style of Wes Johnson, thats why we took him over Cousins, guys like Wesley don't come around as often.

[JMillott]

Webster has posted back to back 120+ three pointers made seasons (seasons he actually played) despite only averaging 26 minutes a game making 38% of his threes and taking 50% of his shots from three.

If you think this guy is a defender who can shoot instead of a shooter that can defend you've got the wrong idea about the guy.

[JMillott]

How does Jefferson preclude them from also building around other players?

[Scal]

Im all for keeping Al, if we cant get him for good value..

but he MUST learn how to pass out of double teams... more often than not he throws a lazy, slow, pass, or just goes up with 2 or 3 guys on him anyway

he needs to learn that if he fires it out of the double team - we will get wide open shots all day from good shooters

the argument about not building around him cuz hes 26 was pretty funny

[revprodeji]

I would like to keep him. I think he could be a very good #2 option. He also seems like the type that ages well considering he does not use athletic ability like Amare, but rather his skills/moves.

The problem is his defensive effort and salary, as well as his eff make us believe that the younger Kevin love would be a better option. Al does one thing very well, left block monster, he is a good rebounder too but without the ability to go one on one left block Al loses value. In a system based on ball movement and passing it is hard to have one of your top guys that is completely counter to the team system. To a different extent it is like when Shaq was on Phoenix.

So I guess the philosophical question should be is it better to build around Al or to move him in favor for this system. Our new front office clearly believes moving Al and building around the system is the best thing to do. Considering the depth at Al's position with Love and Pekovic it does seem like the logical choice. I personally doubt it is simply for a salary dump or a bad contract because those trades would have already happened. So a bigger question is what are we moving Al for?

[Darko Miliminutes]

I still wish that we could have a chance to see Al with Darko. At least for a while. It would increase his value most likely, and could very well prove to be a great duo worth further exploration. But after the big names are signed, the teams that missed out will really value Al, and a good deal can be had by Minny. Combine that with a fast pace not being suited to his game, i can see why he needs to go. But damn it, i want to see him and Darko together for a while.

[Calinks]

Al+Darko+Good outside shooter=Fun times to be had. Not gonna happen though.