Been reading all the good factual information, if I may let me give you my thoughts.
First let me say I love Millsap and would like to keep him as a 6th man. Second let me say that Jefferson needs to improve his jump shot, blocking out for rebounds, passing and playing defence against the pick and roll for the Jazz to have any chance of winning a championship with him as a starter.
Now let’s discuss some things. How about Jefferson's number of blocks against Lakers big men vs. Millsap's per game. You love stats see if you can find that one. You would have to look awfully hard to find where Millsap has blocked many of the Lakers’ bigs very often. I think Big Al's and Favors height and defence had a lot to do with us breaking the Lakers 17 games winning streak against the Jazz.
You don't like to hear height used as a reason to pick Jefferson over Millsap as a starter. Well get over it, because without height the Lakers have dominated us. Again it is not all about stats. The Lakers’ bigs scored almost at will against Boozer at center and Millsap at power forward. We could not stop them or compete with them in a seven game series without height. When we got close in the playoffs they would go to work and open the lead up again. The eye ball test is that with Jefferson and Favors playing against the Lakers we are some-what competitive, and should be more so with Favors getting experience and big Al making some improvements to his game. If Big Al does not improve his pick and roll defence, jump shot, passing and boxing out for rebounds, then I have no problem trading him away for a better big.
The bottom line is that unless Millsap plays power forward with a center the calibre of Dwight Howard he has little chance to ever win a championship. It is the Boozer syndrome again, against taller players Millsap cannot cut it come the playoffs, when the game becomes more of a half court game. No one will argue that Boozer is a better offensive player than Millsap, yet Boozer just had a 2 point game in the playoffs.
Yes, I know it is a team game and I appreciate your stats in that regard, but stats change in the playoffs. Like you said Jefferson wins over-all on individual stats against Millsap’s stats for last season, and remember that Jefferson was playing against taller players. I think Millsap’s numbers go down in many categories even more if he plays against the taller players Jefferson plays against during the regular season, and it would get worse during the playoffs.
Again Jefferson must improve in many areas for the Jazz to win a championship with him, but without a Dwight Howard type big man next to Millsap the Jazz have little chance to win a championship with him as a starting power forward. At least that is the way I see it and I think most posters will agree with that.
