What's new
By:

Al Jefferson (2nd best defensive bigman in the NBA?)

B

BYE

Well-Known Member
JJAS said:
This guy put together a chart using synergy of the best defensive bigmen in the league. I was a bit surprised myself to see our friend Big Al listed #2. Obviously this doesn't take into consideration team defense etc. What do you think of it?

https://www.49erswebzone.com/forum/other-sports/153463-best-defensive-big-men-nba-synergy-sports/
Click to expand...

Just don't know what to say. I like Al ... he deserves some praise and he certainly can score the ball .. but 2nd best defensive big man in the NBA? I would think a 20 and 10 guy that is also the 2nd best defensive guy should be good for overall 2nd best center in the world, at least. Maybe we can get Chris Paul and Granger for him?
 
Big Al's problem is that he has tunnel vision on both ends of the court. On the defensive end, he sees only his man. On offense he sees only the basket. He also happens to be terrible in transition (the oft forgotten element of team basketball). Nothing to see here IMO.
 
So the two of you that have replied apparently think that Al is a beyond crappy defender. With Al, like GVC pointed out, it's apparently team/transition defense. He looks stupendous overall on paper in the categories that you can actually measure according to synergy. So Al must improve on things you can't measure, right? And I don't necessarily buy the amorphous +/- since if that were the only important stat, team starters would look quite different. So if you were a coach, what would you tell Al to do so that the non-measurable aspects matched up with the measurable ones. How far away is Al from becoming a great defender if it's not his measurable stats, and how can you measure his improvement? Is Al hopeless?

1. Team Defense (what does this mean?; does he blow every assignment; would his teammates defensive stats bear this out?)
2. Transition defense (is it just fitness or lack of speed?)
 
Nobody called Al a crappy defender. I said he's not the 2nd best defensive center in the league. Does that equate to crappiness? Depends .. but I didn't say it.
 
JJAS said:
So the two of you that have replied apparently think that Al is a beyond crappy defender. With Al, like GVC pointed out, it's apparently team/transition defense. He looks stupendous overall on paper in the categories that you can actually measure according to synergy. So Al must improve on things you can't measure, right? And I don't necessarily buy the amorphous +/- since if that were the only important stat, team starters would look quite different. So if you were a coach, what would you tell Al to do so that the non-measurable aspects matched up with the measurable ones. How far away is Al from becoming a great defender if it's not his measurable stats, and how can you measure his improvement? Is Al hopeless?

1. Team Defense (what does this mean?; does he blow every assignment; would his teammates defensive stats bear this out?)
2. Transition defense (is it just fitness or lack of speed?)
Click to expand...

One word: rotate. The end.
 
GVC said:
Big Al's problem is that he has tunnel vision on both ends of the court. On the defensive end, he sees only his man. On offense he sees only the basket. He also happens to be terrible in transition (the oft forgotten element of team basketball). Nothing to see here IMO.
Click to expand...

That's the refrain about Al, i.e., that he has tunnel vision. How does one measure "tunnel vision" particularly offensively? Is it his assists? He was tied for 13 in assists among centers above many of the best centers in the league (Howard, Bynum, Monroe etc.). He was only .9 assists behind Duncan/Hayes at #2 for centers. Is it his lower shooting percentage at 49.6% (right at about the same as Noah, B. and R. Lopez, Bogut, Stoudemire, Duncan)? Or is it something that you can't measure? I'm not being smart--genuinely interested because once a player gets a reputation, he always seems to carry that reputation with him. He can never shed it unless he luckily gets on a good team that does well, as Tyson Chandler did. He is being over praised beyond belief right now https://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/08/09/top-100-nba-players-nos-31-40/; he's ranked as the #35 best player in the league. No one even remembers him from 2009-2010, but he's a champion and a hot commodity now. Will Al always have "tunnel vision"?
 
PKM said:
Nobody called Al a crappy defender. I said he's not the 2nd best defensive center in the league. Does that equate to crappiness? Depends .. but I didn't say it.
Click to expand...

True, you didn't say that. Sarcasm is always difficult to interpret. Do you think he is a crappy defender?
 
JJAS said:
True, you didn't say that. Sarcasm is always difficult to interpret. Do you think he is a crappy defender?
Click to expand...

As others have said, I think he's a good man defender. I think his transition D is poor and his help D is below average. Overall, I think he just lacks a high bb IQ .. but what do I know? Wait, don't answer that.
 
JJAS said:
That's the refrain about Al, i.e., that he has tunnel vision. How does one measure "tunnel vision" particularly offensively? Is it his assists? He was tied for 13 in assists among centers
Click to expand...
His usage rate is also quite high. I haven't crunched the numbers, but if you're interested, head on over to basketball-reference.com and compute AST%/USG% (advanced stats). It won't be a perfect stat, obviously, since each player is operating in a different system and with different teammates, but it will be a lot better than looking at straight assists.

As far as measuring transition defense, it's difficult right now. 82games.com has some data on offensive shot clock usage (for teams and players, I think), but not for player-specific defensive shot clock usage. It would be interesting to see Big Al's on-court/off-court offensive and defensive numbers for early offense. I may at some point write an email to 82games, asking for some raw data.
 
And it doesn't make much sense criticizing Dwight Howard for his low assist rate relative to Big Al's. Howard's TS% was .616 last season, Al's was .528. One is highly efficient when he chooses to shoot, the other is not. If Al isn't creating offense for others when he's on the court, he's nowhere near as effective as Dwight Howard is.
 
JJAS said:
Is it his lower shooting percentage at 49.6% (right at about the same as Noah, B. and R. Lopez, Bogut, Stoudemire, Duncan)?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, I'm away from home at present, don't have my collected data with me, and will be back in the woods with company later tonight, so I can do little to show why fg% is a poor measure. You have access to basketball-reference.com and mysynergy sports, so you can see Big Al's PPP (which takes into account shooting attempts, including shooting fouls, and turnovers but not assists) and TS%. Drawing fouls is awfully important in today's NBA.
 
GVC said:
Unfortunately, I'm away from home at present, don't have my collected data with me, and will be back in the woods with company later tonight, so I can do little to show why fg% is a poor measure. You have access to basketball-reference.com and mysynergy sports, so you can see Big Al's PPP (which takes into account shooting attempts, including shooting fouls, and turnovers but not assists) and TS%. Drawing fouls is awfully important in today's NBA.
Click to expand...

To me there are two different points. Is Al an efficient player, and is Al a dark hole (are these the same thing, or are they different)? Another part to the dynamic is coaching. I am a firm believer in the onus being on the coach for the overall effectiveness of the defense. You can have one or two bad defensive players and still have a stupendous defense (e.g., Tom Thibodeau). How much of the responsibility does the coach take? Same goes for Scotty Brooks. Bogut's really good, but who else?
 
Noah, Tyson Chandler, Dwight Howard, The carrot top looking Lopez twin, the black clippers center who blocks a ton of shots, and that long halvsie from the Wizards are all better defenders IMO.

I think one could also argue that Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, Andrew Bogut, Tim Duncan, Brendon Haywood, and Nene are better too....

If we're going off on just "bigmen" and not centers, I think you could argue that Aldrich, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol, Bosh, and the Heat center are all better defenders.

Hell, I think it's debatable on whether Al Jefferson is the best defensive big man on this team! Derrick Favors showed more to me defensively than Al ever did...
 
The Thriller said:
Noah, Tyson Chandler, Dwight Howard, The carrot top looking Lopez twin, the black clippers center who blocks a ton of shots, and that long halvsie from the Wizards are all better defenders IMO.

I think one could also argue that Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, Andrew Bogut, Tim Duncan, Brendon Haywood, and Nene are better too....

If we're going off on just "bigmen" and not centers, I think you could argue that Aldrich, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol, Bosh, and the Heat center are all better defenders.

Hell, I think it's debatable on whether Al Jefferson is the best defensive big man on this team! Derrick Favors showed more to me defensively than Al ever did...
Click to expand...

This is the crux of what I was trying to elicit from this thread. Besides the mystical feeling someone has inside them, how do we quantify any statement about Al's effectiveness, defensively or otherwise? This isn't necessary since people have been making statements since time began without any effect at all on their ability to sleep at night, and it won't end now. I'm just wondering how to objectively and quantifiably make statements about players--particularly players who have lots of stats saying the opposite. What good are stats at all when we can say X is better than Y just like the ESPN rankings (very scientific by the way; about as much as breaking wind or choosing McDonald's over Wendy's, the latter usually causing the former).
 
JJAS said:
That's the refrain about Al, i.e., that he has tunnel vision. How does one measure "tunnel vision" particularly offensively? Is it his assists? He was tied for 13 in assists among centers above many of the best centers in the league (Howard, Bynum, Monroe etc.). He was only .9 assists behind Duncan/Hayes at #2 for centers. Is it his lower shooting percentage at 49.6% (right at about the same as Noah, B. and R. Lopez, Bogut, Stoudemire, Duncan)? Or is it something that you can't measure? I'm not being smart--genuinely interested because once a player gets a reputation, he always seems to carry that reputation with him. He can never shed it unless he luckily gets on a good team that does well, as Tyson Chandler did. He is being over praised beyond belief right now https://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/08/09/top-100-nba-players-nos-31-40/; he's ranked as the #35 best player in the league. No one even remembers him from 2009-2010, but he's a champion and a hot commodity now. Will Al always have "tunnel vision"?
Click to expand...

Sadly, a lot of what you are asking is not measurable. The team concept on both offense and defense have so many variables in basketball these little charts Synergy comes up with are mostly for entertainment value. For instance even on one they measured, pick and roll situations, how would they measure if it was bad defense on Al's part or a blown assignment? Was there supposed to be a switch and someone forgot? Did Harris go under the screen of a 3 point shooter? Whoops Al now gets docked for the guard's folly. Adjusted +/- isn't perfect, but I do like it because there is nowhere to hide from in this stat. If you are a bad defender, eventually you will be exposed. Players that tend to do the little things, like dive for balls and take charges, usually end up in the green, while lazy players are in the red. Let's just say Al is pretty lazy.
 
Yep. Even if you hate +/-, there's some value in looking at the adjusted numbers (https://basketballvalue.com/index.php) and in looking at various on-court/off-court stats on 82games.com. These stats don't show the whole picture, obviously, but they're decent indicators IMO.
 
This has already been brought up before, but whatever, its a lockout. I think Al is for the most part an average defender. He has moments were he is pretty good, and moments were he is pretty bad.
 
I suppose one could watch every single defensive possession of Al like Lock did with his pick-and-rolls on offense, but we all have better things to do. I wonder if there's a stat that shows the opposing teams field goal percentage when a given player is on the court. This would at least isolate the defensive aspect of the team on the +/- while the player is in the game. Points scored while a player is on the floor to me is not the whole story. The opposing team's shooting percentage and types of shots would be interesting if there was a handy-dandy stat. You statisticians would know better than me. I'm not a master at stats but would like to learn more about them since they're fun and quantifiable.
 
JJAS said:
I suppose one could watch every single defensive possession of Al like Lock did with his pick-and-rolls on offense, but we all have better things to do. I wonder if there's a stat that shows the opposing teams field goal percentage when a given player is on the court. This would at least isolate the defensive aspect of the team on the +/- while the player is in the game. Points scored while a player is on the floor to me is not the whole story. The opposing team's shooting percentage and types of shots would be interesting if there was a handy-dandy stat. You statisticians would know better than me. I'm not a master at stats but would like to learn more about them since they're fun and quantifiable.
Click to expand...
82games.com

Here are the On-Court/Off-Court numbers for AJ: https://www.82games.com/1011/10UTA15.HTM#onoff
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top