Big Al's Paint: The Al Jefferson Thread

[MPM]

al definitely seems to fit the high character player that cho loves. in fact now we know dont have a single player that i wouldnt consider as very high character, smart, humble and hard working. who is the most unlikeable player we have? i dare you to name one.

humble yourself.

[Colby]

Congrats on landing Big Al! Used correctly on the floor or not, he is no doubt going to be a net positive on your franchise when his time in Charlotte ends. He's that good of a dude.

Here's a must-check link, from the best Jazz blog out there, imo. It's got .gifs and a short recap of the writer's feelings on Al, filled with links that real fans would like to read. It'll give you a bunch of non-newspaper-style fluff that I'm sure you've torn through already. Enjoy Big Al and Big Al's Big Ass Bed.

http://jazzfanatical.wordpress.com/2013 ... ng-big-al/

thanks for the link.

You're welcome. Sorry, I totally missed this thread before. Here's another Big Al focused deal with a couple links to stories a Cats fan would like to hear:

http://www.slcdunk.com/the-downbeat/201 ... -assembled

[fatlever]

al definitely seems to fit the high character player that cho loves. in fact now we know dont have a single player that i wouldnt consider as very high character, smart, humble and hard working. who is the most unlikeable player we have? i dare you to name one.

humble yourself.

oops, i totally forgot about gordon. he still makes my skin crawl.

[BlackOutBuzz]

Found another neat article through the jazzfanatical link, about how Big Al pretty much could tell his time was done in Utah, and how graciously he accepted it.

Go here: http://jazzfanatical.wordpress.com/2013 ... d-millsap/

Bonus: CTRL + F "You know" = 60 matches :lol"

[fatlever]

Bonus: CTRL + F "You know" = 60 matches :lol"

it lit up my monitor like a purple christmas tree.

[MPM]

Funny - watching the Howard drama unfold made me realize what a savvy move CLT made with it's surgical Big Al strike. While the marquee teams were duking it out to grab the gold, we helped ourselves to the silver, and some team or teams, who would have loved to have had Big Al as a plan B, will be left holding the bag. GSW will be fine with Iggy, but Dallas, Atlanta, and LA? What's their plan B? Bynum? J Smoove? I think CLT may have arguably grabbed the 2nd most talented big in this FA class. I'm sure Dallas/LA would love to have Big Al at this point - makes the fact that he's coming to CLT even wilder. It seems to me that Big Al's camp would have only had to wait a day or two to pick from some bigger market players, which leaves me hopeful that they (and he) are impressed with the where the Bobcats are headed as an organization (and, of course, the fact that MJ was willing to shell out a few bucks).

[SpearNMgicHelmt]

It's nice to read that Jefferson is a good mentor type. Between him and Ewing, Biz certainly has some good tutors to help his offense. There have been a couple of games where Jefferson took Biyombo to school as an opponent. Maybe now he can do it as a team-mate.

Somewhere back in this thread, there was a critique that we don't want a bad defensive player showing Biz how to be lazy on that end of the court. Biz doesn't have a lazy bone in his body! No chance of that happening.

I'm also going to enjoy seeing how Kemba develops as a playmaker with more guys to pass to that can score. Al inside and hopefully Zeller from multiple spots.

[JT2006]

The Davis/Mkg/Barnes draft was super hyped at the beggining of the season. Barnes was being called special, Davis was being hyped as the next Garnett, Drummond was supposed to be a beast, and dont forget how excited people were about Beal- he was the next Ray Allen....

it was decently hyped but it could still turn out to be a god tier draft, it's only a season in

[JT2006]

al definitely seems to fit the high character player that cho loves. in fact now we know dont have a single player that i wouldnt consider as very high character, smart, humble and hard working. who is the most unlikeable player we have? i dare you to name one.

humble yourself.

oops, i totally forgot about gordon. he still makes my skin crawl.

mullens is kinda lame sometimes

[HornetJail]

humble yourself.

oops, i totally forgot about gordon. he still makes my skin crawl.

mullens is kinda lame sometimes

Unfortunately, I think Mullens is as good as gone. Between our five-man rotation at the 4 and 5 (Jefferson, Biyombo, McBob, Haywood, Zeller), and lack of cap space, I can't see him coming back here for any more than the minimum.

[Logander]

oops, i totally forgot about gordon. he still makes my skin crawl.

mullens is kinda lame sometimes

Unfortunately, I think Mullens is as good as gone. Between our five-man rotation at the 4 and 5 (Jefferson, Biyombo, McBob, Haywood, Zeller), and lack of cap space, I can't see him coming back here for any more than the minimum.

We don't need him anymore frankly, I hope we can trade Haywood away and sign a better 3-point shooter to be our sixth man. Or depending on who it is, let Hendo be the sixth man. But Mullens shouldn't be coming back. No reason for him too

[BeesWax]

There is a 0% chance GS trades us Klay for taking their contracts. That's a pipe dream that is so homer that it makes me embarrassed.

Some posters make me really mad. You complain how Al Jeff took up all our cap space and sucks and isn't worth the money, but then you pan how we lost out on Wiggins in 2014. Which one is it? He improves us to be "good" (oh no!) but he sucks and kills our cap.

Can't please anyone. Cho, keep on doing what you are doing and don't listen to us. Makes me want to stop reading realgm.

He improves us enough to make us a bad spot lottery team but not enough to make us a real winner. He may sneak us into getting swept as the 8th seed again. I was a poor signing brought on by whiny fans who don't understand how to build a team and just wanted something to happen.

You've said the same thing literally 25 times.

I only keep saying it because you guys keeping touting it as good. Some of you say hey it makes us a 8th seed type playoff team, which is a horrible thing for us to be. Some of you say it does not hurt because he is not going to be good enough to make us a playoff team, which is even worse because then we get nothing out of it. No matter what happens this coming season it was a bad move with either outcome. Best case scenario is something happens and he cant play and we get to stick to the plan a year longer and develop our youth and don't become the worst case in the NBA, a middle tier team.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Nobody disputes the point. Being a treadmill 8th seed is a bad place to be.

Many of us just don't think that this is the Bobcats future at this point.

[MasterIchiro]

I think we need to define treadmill.

A team with Kemba, MKG, Zeller and Biz is very young and can improve significantly. We've already seen Kemba do that.

The 8th seed in the playoffs doesn't make us a treadmill team, it makes us a new playoff team with lots of youth plus a pick from DET and POR to add to the rebuild.

The team has not reached its potential. To call them a treadmill team translates to you basically thinking none of these young players has the capacity to improve at all.

[KembaWalker]

What if I told you that making the 8th seed one year doesn't lock you into the 8th seed forever?

8th seed next year with 3 of our biggest 4 contributors likely to be Walker, MKG, Zeller would be amazing.

[Logander]

The only reason I didn't like this pick up is to get in the 11-15 range, where we don't go to the playoffs nor do we get our pick (goes to Bulls). I would like to either end up around 8 or in the playoffs as an 8th seed or something.

Edit: Just saw the Rockets and Hawks are trying to get a deal for Josh Smith. If the Hawks end up tanking this year that would put us in a good place to be 2nd in our conference. We could seriously make the playoffs this year. Also, if for some reason DET and POR picks don't work out, maybe we can trade Gordons expiring contract and something else for(cash maybe, idk) for a pick into next years draft. The only way I will be pretty upset next year is if we dont make the playoffs, forfeit our pick to Bulls, and don't grab either DET or POR picks and don't trade to get into the draft, which I feel like won't happen. So, unlike yesterday, I am feeling very optimistic about this year.

[ammofan]

What if I told you that making the 8th seed one year doesn't lock you into the 8th seed forever?

8th seed next year with 3 of our biggest 4 contributors likely to be Walker, MKG, Zeller would be amazing.

I'd rather be the 8th seed than 9-14 in the lottery honestly(if we got to keep our pick regardless).

And like you said, we wouldn't be an 8 seed with multiple older players like we did with Wallace/Jack/Diaw/etc...we have Walker/MKG/Biz/Zeller/JT who are all within their first 3 years and haven't even sniffed their prime yet. If we made the playoffs as the 8 seed that should definitely not be the ceiling if our young guys progress...which they certainly will.

[BeesWax]

I think we need to define treadmill.

A team with Kemba, MKG, Zeller and Biz is very young and can improve significantly. We've already seen Kemba do that.

The 8th seed in the playoffs doesn't make us a treadmill team, it makes us a new playoff team with lots of youth plus a pick from DET and POR to add to the rebuild.

The team has not reached its potential. To call them a treadmill team translates to you basically thinking none of these young players has the capacity to improve at all.

Biz will not improve at the rate he should with a ball hog black hole playing ahead of him. Zeller will be stunted as well due to lack of touches and you could say the same for MKG. We would have been better giving the time Jefferson is going to get to Biz and McRoberts and then giving his touches to Zeller, who has to learn a new position on offense and defense, and MKG who needs reps as a scorer to get better. There is no substitute of game minutes and we are going to give them to a 28 year old black hole.

My defenition of treadmill is a team that is not doing what it needs to get better either as a team or building a team. When you hold back your youth but don't improve the rest of the team enough to be good, you are on the treadmill. This team likely peaks at 7th seed and barely misses other years. In other words wont get better through the draft and won't improve enough on the court either.

[MasterIchiro]

I think we need to define treadmill.

A team with Kemba, MKG, Zeller and Biz is very young and can improve significantly. We've already seen Kemba do that.

The 8th seed in the playoffs doesn't make us a treadmill team, it makes us a new playoff team with lots of youth plus a pick from DET and POR to add to the rebuild.

The team has not reached its potential. To call them a treadmill team translates to you basically thinking none of these young players has the capacity to improve at all.

Biz will not improve at the rate he should with a ball hog black hole playing ahead of him. Zeller will be stunted as well due to lack of touches and you could say the same for MKG. We would have been better giving the time Jefferson is going to get to Biz and McRoberts and then giving his touches to Zeller, who has to learn a new position on offense and defense, and MKG who needs reps as a scorer to get better. There is no substitute of game minutes and we are going to give them to a 28 year old black hole.

My defenition of treadmill is a team that is not doing what it needs to get better either as a team or building a team. When you hold back your youth but don't improve the rest of the team enough to be good, you are on the treadmill. This team likely peaks at 7th seed and barely misses other years. In other words wont get better through the draft and won't improve enough on the court either.

OK so you admit that these are talented young players so what makes us a treadmill team in your eyes is reduced development time? Teams can't be both competitive while rebuilding at the same time?

I always thought the amount of playing time a player receives doesn't necessarily equate to linear development. In some situations, assimilation of a player is more effective as a gradual process where younger players share time with veterans whose strengths serve as a model for them. Sometimes, too much time, too soon, can expose a young players flaws, shake his confidence and force him to do things he's not ready to do. So sometimes too much playing time can become counterproductive and hinder development. I think maybe you feel increased minutes equate to increased production. They're correlated but time does not always maximize production. Sometimes it exaggerates inefficiencies. Did Byron Mullens develop with more playing time? Nope. He became a nightmare and he's out of a job now. So much for increased playing time to young players who haven't learned enough to know what to do with it.

Bottom line is, some young players handle globs of playing time heaped upon them and grow and develop. Others must be placed in situations where they may achieve success in order to fully realize their potential - and that's not every situation, every time, with unlimited minutes.

[Logander]

I think we need to define treadmill.

A team with Kemba, MKG, Zeller and Biz is very young and can improve significantly. We've already seen Kemba do that.

The 8th seed in the playoffs doesn't make us a treadmill team, it makes us a new playoff team with lots of youth plus a pick from DET and POR to add to the rebuild.

The team has not reached its potential. To call them a treadmill team translates to you basically thinking none of these young players has the capacity to improve at all.

Biz will not improve at the rate he should with a ball hog black hole playing ahead of him. Zeller will be stunted as well due to lack of touches and you could say the same for MKG. We would have been better giving the time Jefferson is going to get to Biz and McRoberts and then giving his touches to Zeller, who has to learn a new position on offense and defense, and MKG who needs reps as a scorer to get better. There is no substitute of game minutes and we are going to give them to a 28 year old black hole.

My defenition of treadmill is a team that is not doing what it needs to get better either as a team or building a team. When you hold back your youth but don't improve the rest of the team enough to be good, you are on the treadmill. This team likely peaks at 7th seed and barely misses other years. In other words wont get better through the draft and won't improve enough on the court either.

I think he won't be as much of a black hole as he was in Utah. I'm sure he knows we're building around our youth and hes going to have pass around the ball more. Theres no way we let him do everything offensively for this team when its got the potential as our guys have.