we need someone who can set the pick and roll towards the basket...I think Al Jefferson is a pick and pop player, who can bury the open jumper...
It's a case of Carmelonitis, combination of overholding and forcing shots. To his credit, he improved for stretches last year, passing to cutters more and saying all the right things, kind of like Melo right now, so there's some hope, but then he reverts back to his old ways. Also, he's probably the most skilled pure low post scorer in the league, so he's still a good player in the end. That said, he's lucky he's a 15 mil player in Utah instead of a big market team like New York, he'd be viewed much more negatively right now.
First off, I want to say I'm not trying to argue with you on this, as you know a lot more about bball than I do and I always seem to learn something when discussing something with you. Just trying to educate myself on your argument. Basically, it's difficult for me to understand how close to 50% is that bad? Off the top of my head, I can only think of a couple go-to post players who do much better than that today - Bynum and Dwight. Zach Randolph and Luis Scola shoot a comparable %, and DeMarcus Cousins and Josh Smith shoot less than 45%!! Stats from last year. I think it would be a real luxury to have a go-to player shooting close to 50% rather than having guards jacking up outside shots all day........
A few other big men came to mind, so I looked up their numbers too. David West and Marc Gasol had pretty comparable, slightly worse FG% than Jefferson. Pau Gasol had slightly better (just over 50%).
...seems like we need a decent PnR big given the style of our guards. I said it before but vote no to Al Jefferson.
I would rather have Jefferson over Milsap. Jefferson would give us something we don't have (post scoring) while being a solid defender and a good jump shooter up to 16 ft. What I think alot of people are missing is what do we have to give that the Jazz would want? Most of our assets are bigs which the Jazz have plenty of in Milsap, Favors and Kanter. We wouldn't move Lin or Harden, and I don't think the Jazz would be interested in Parsons or Morris. We also just shipped 2 1's for Harden so I'm not sure how we could ship out any more and not violate the NBA's draft trading rule. As much as I would love to add Jefferson to this squad, I just don't think the Rockets have what the Jazz would want.
Cousins and Smith bring other things besides being efficient scorers. Randolph generally gets a lot of FTs. TS% is a much better measure than FG% as it takes into 3pt shooting as well as fts.
Darn, you all were right. While Al Jefferson's TS% is better than Josh Smith and DeMarcus Cousins, Al's TS% (52%) is actually less than the league average at all positions that year (52.7%). I didn't realize TS% would vary that much from FG%. Regardless, he's still capable of creating his own shot, which I like. I agree with the poster who said we might not have anything to offer Utah. Al is arguably Utah's best player, and we just have scrub leftovers to offer them. I don't want to give up D-Mo either, and Utah probably doesn't want him anyway. I guess you just have to be patient to see what these young dudes turn into....
I think Cousins and Smith are inefficient. But Cousins has a ton of upside, so I still kind of like him. Re the question, I don't think there's an easy answer. Jefferson has a pedestrian FG%, but the bigger issue is that he doesn't make up for it with other things. He does have very low turnover numbers every year, but it's in part because he doesn't move the ball much, so it's less impressive in that light. A guy like Pau is just going to get that extra turnover because he's moving the ball all the time. I think FG% in itself doesn't tell much, I think the ultimate question is "what does the player bring to the table when he's given the ball?" I think rather than FG%, offensive efficiency is more like this: offensive efficiency = value brought (points, assists) / {used possessions (shot attempts, free throws, turnovers, assists) - added possessions (offensive boards, and arguably even steals)} A guy like Moses Malone may have fairly average FG% because he will shoot, miss, rebound, shoot, miss, rebound, shoot, make. He brought so many free possessions to the team that his FG% is very deceptive and doesn't reflect his efficiency well. Or Kenneth Faried. 40-50% of his shot attempts are "free". Compare to Al Jefferson's 2.2 offensive boards and ~19 shot attempts last year (that's including fouled misses). And it's a similar story with guys like Dwight, Love, Bynum, Horford, ZBO, and so on. They either bring more to the table, or take less off, or both.
Millsap plays bigger than his 6'7"-8" stature and is shooting the heck out of the 3. Even blocks shots. Play him at the 3/4 for the stretch forward we need and get soft-as-butta Pitty Pat outta here. Jefferson is less mobile than a phone booth. no thanks.
they did it a lot last year too, especially in the playoffs. Favors is just too good to be played 25 minutes a game on that roster, which means Millsap at SF a lot.
I think he'd be starting on the Rockets, but I don't think he deserves more minutes in Utah. Right now, he's turning the ball over too much and taking bad shots once in a while. He's not the fastest thinker. But he's still very effective overall, and I think one of the reasons for his turnovers is that Utah's bench doesn't have good spacing so help defense gets to him very quickly. I think if he was surrounded by better shooters, and got more minutes, he'd be a very solid starter.
Al Jefferson for me because the Rockets need a low post scorer next to Asik. And Jefferson is better than Millsap in that regard. I'd take either though.
