Falling out of love with Al Jefferson
- Thread starter dantheman
- Start date
After watching that slop last night I think all of us wanted to go on a drinking binge.
But we are still a team with a lot of new parts trying to get it together. I hope they get it figured out soon because losing 2 out of your last 3 home games is not going to get you any ware.
vslice02
Well-Known Member
After Chicago offered Boozer 5 years $75 million the Boozer camp gave the Jazz the opportunity to match - which Utah declined. I consider myself as big a Boozer fan there is and thought it was the right move to pass then and still feel the same. I also said Al was not an instant upgrade over Boozer and still feel the same now - although I wasn't expecting Al to struggle as much in terms of rebounding and making easy baskets.
Look, there's about a 5% chance Al gets traded this season. He's going to be a Jazz man and I need to see him the rest of the season before I conclude he's not an effective player and that there's no way he can fit into Jazz basketball.
Through 13 games he's shown little improvement. Next 13 games will take us up to the pre-Christmas trip. With 10 of those at home and alot of off-days to practice I expect to see some noticaeble improvement during that time.
InGameStrategy
Well-Known Member
And the opposing GSW center got 20 boards. And GSW doubled Utah in offensive rebounds. And GSW won the game.
And against Toronto, AJ got outrebounded by Andrea FREAKING Bargnani.
I get your deal, Hopper. You're not a Sloan apologist. You're not a Jefferson apologist. You're an oblivion apologist. It's possible that you don't really believe it and just do it for sport, but it seems like a pretty lame position to advance.
"Tentative" is an irrelevant argument regarding Jefferson's lax help defense and boxing out. The amount of time that a new Jazz player needs to be tentative defensively is about the same amount of time that it takes for you to say "Sloan, he ROCKS." And if Sloan (or Phil) had been benching Jefferson for 5 or 10 minutes more when he has been a liability (frequently) like I have been arguing all along, Utah would have at least a couple of more wins.
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Good to hear I wasn't the only one **** housed last night.
sportsnut1232
Member
I was very dissapointed with the effort overall last night. As soon as our guys saw it would be a tough game, it's like they gave up. Deron played bad, Jefferson was terrible as has been mentioned, Millsap had an off game. CJ and Price made some things happen. Johnson made absolutely no adjustments. Why not give Fes minutes?? hayward didn't get in the game either.
That was an atrocious coaching job by Phil. He just sat there the whole game and it looked like he could care less what happened. AK made a great play to get an and 1 and the very next play he is taken out of the game.. wow, just wow.
That was an atrocious coaching job by Phil. He just sat there the whole game and it looked like he could care less what happened. AK made a great play to get an and 1 and the very next play he is taken out of the game.. wow, just wow.
LifeOnaPlate
Well-Known Member
Marty McFly
Well-Known Member
Get the **** out of here! Look, I know you hate Jefferson and will single him out as often as possible, but NOBODY has been rebounding this year. Look at PM's numbers for the last 10 games:
7
15
6
6
6
5
9
13
11
6
And he's currently averaging 9.3 RPG.
Al's last 10 games:
6
9
5
6
10
8
9
10
15
6
And is averaging 8.5. In that Toronto game, Paul Millsap ALSO got outrebounded by Andrea Freaking Bargnani. Yet I've never seen you call for Millsap to be benched, ever.
"It's only just beguuuuuun."
kash
Well-Known Member
if jefferson were to play with the same hustle and energy that millsap does, then jefferson would be a beast. al is just a lazy player, and it doesn't help that he is dumb as bricks too...i had so much hope for him when i heard of the trade, but that hope is pretty much all gone now.
InGameStrategy
Well-Known Member
First of all, I don't hate Jefferson. What I do hate are insufficient effort by players, lack of enforcement of effort by coaches, and insufficient of planning and adjustments by everyone. Your accusation of my hating Jefferson is completely unfounded. I lobbied for Utah drafting AJ, and I was happy when they traded for him. However, his performance is among the top two readily fixable problems that the Jazz have. (The other one is playing too much of Bell instead of Miles.)
In my book, the ideal is that Jefferson be "the guy" at center. He has more scoring ability (despite the wimpy push shot) than Fes and Elson do. I only lobby for them because it has been proven repeatedly, including the last game, the the 7 footers have a superior net effect over Jefferson despite being far less proficient scorers.
And he's averaging a full rebound less per 30 minutes--a far more relevant metric than RPG--than Elson. But no matter whether he was averaging 5 RPG or 15 RPG, if he is dogging it, he should be benched--at least for a possesssion or 5 minutes or so--becuase Utah needs every last rebound.
Jefferson has gotten a free pass in most games despite repeated offenses of no defense or blocking. You need go no further than the NBA.com recap of the SAS game to see at least three examples in which AJ's help defense was neither effective nor efforted.
I have no idea why you are trying to stand up for Jefferson, when AJ isn't standing up against anyone on the reboudn. He has been substarter material for most of the year, putting up nice box-score numbers only because of his proximity to the basket and Boozer-like focus on scoring at the expense of everything else (except that Boozer focused on reabounding, too).
Under my system (and supposedly Sloan's philosophy), ANYONE who is dogging it gets benched until the next possession. I've seen Gregg Popovich do it, and lo and behold, his team works. This enforcement of effort might be reduced during clutch time (the last 5 minutes of the game if it's close), but by then, it should be long clear who is producing and who isn't.
Problem with Millsap is that he has a more significant height disadvantage than Jefferson. But I simply don't see the same laxity in effort on either end of the floor as AJ. I have no problem sitting down Man if he is getting lazy--or even pwned despite putting forth 100%. Nor do I have a problem with Elson, Fes, or anyone else being benched if they are not getting it done. Such assessment can be made within a matter of a few minutes of playing time (more than 3 minutes, btw). But not waiting for 20 or 30 minutes of bad playing to go by; sit 'em down, let 'em focus, and put 'em back out there if they deserve another chance. Repeat a maximum of 2 or 3 times per game.
Performance-based lineups. Coaching 101.
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carolinajazz
Well-Known Member
.....so what your saying is he's closer to being an overpaid board crasher than being a true blue Utah Jazz type player..and nothing is going to really change for him and us in the foreseeable future???
WinningUgly
Member
At least he is not in street clothes watching and getting paid.
carolinajazz
Well-Known Member
...plenty of blame to go around here, as he thriller pointed out! But Jefferson just doesn't seem to have much of a flow to his game....like he is lost out there when a play is called or he needs to respond to a variation of the play. He just seems to be more of a school yard type ball player, than a Jazz type ball player. Maybe he's working at it and is a slow learner. Maybe he will never learn. BUt like it or not, we have him for 2 more years after this....unless we can dump him on some other team that feels his skills and salary are more to their liking!
LifeOnaPlate
Well-Known Member
For what it's worth there were some very questionable calls against Al and Paul imo.
It cant get much worse at least.