Al Jefferson is a BEAST......deserves some credit.

Just unlucky. Typical NBA player with tons of skills, called a loser because he ended up on bad teams all the time. Put him on the Grizzlies in place of Zach Randolph and they are just as good, if not better. Put Randolph on the Bobcats, he'll put up his points and rebounds and he'll still lose.

On the other hand, he was an FA and he chose the money. That's his choice, but to me that says he doesn't hate losing as much as a player that wants to win a championship should.

All relative.

 

Their system utilized his strength and hided his weakness. On the other hand, that's what good coach does.

 

Um one plays in Houston (big market) took his team to the playoffs at 23 has a beard and is a top 10 player which al Jefferson has never sniffed at becoming. It's a terrible question to ask. Also harden has been solid on defense not great but solid the last 2 months. I think it's time to let the horrible on defense thing go. You guys make it seem like he's the worst defender in the league and just stands put and doesn't move when you and me both know that's furthest from the truth.

 

He chose the Cats and moreso, he chose to play with Kemba Walker. He said pretty emphatically he wanted to be in CLT and wanted to be where he was sought after. I think was the only high profile center to sign before Howard and Houston inked the deal here. I didn't think it was a a money thing only, as I understood, he and Utah's FO were on the same page that they were going younger and he wasn't part of the plan.

And not sure I agree on the hate losing vs. chasing a championship thing. I'd MUCH rather be associated with turning a franchise around vs. hitching my wagon to a championship ride.

 

This is based on history, not reality. CHA has roughly the same offensively output this year over last but have come from dead last defensively to a top five or six defensive team. Prior to MKG going out for 17 games and using CDR/Tolliver in his stead, CHA was second in the league defensively.

I recognize that this was the historical view of Big Al. It's simply not accurate for how he's playing this year.

 

Al Jefferson is a good player who is thought of mostly as a good player. Despite his offensive skill, he is not particularly efficient. He doesn't shoot a high percentage or get to the line. His rebounding is good, but not great, and his defense is poor. The one thing he is actually great at is his very low turnover rate.

He's making basically the same money as Harden this year.

 

No no no no no.

Jefferson is still a farily lousy defender. The Bobcats aren't good on D, because of him, but in spite of him.
They have very good wing defenders in Henderson & MKG and the rest of their team just plays super hard. Steve Clifford deserves a ton of credit for coaching them up and getting them ready to play every night.

Jefferson does deserve a ton of credit for his offensive out put and the lone reason the Bobcats' ORtg is bad is because their primary perimeter options can't shoot (3s).

Rob Mahoney wrote an excellent piece on this very subject today: http://nba.si.com/2014/02/06/al-jefferson-charlotte-bobcats-josh-mcroberts-anthony-tolliver/

I've watched every Bobcats game since December (I unreasonably enjoy watching them) and couldn't have summed it up any better (if I actually were good at writing).

 

Disagree with your assertion that they are good despite him.

Don't agree on putting Hendo on par with MKG or Taylor on D. Not to say he cannot still blow things up in transition and is still quite capable. But the Cats are far more reliant on MKG than any other single player for "elite" D since Taylor went down.

It's a long way of saying that all the Cats have to play very hard on D to be good. MKG will always get the opposing threat, the other guys have to play great team ball and from my viewpoint, Big Al is a great communicator on just that (and have watched him teach D on the court when guys have been wildly out of position).

Look at the article you are using to demonstrate the Big Al effect on Offense, it also explains who he's on the floor with defensively (A.T., McBob, Cody, CDR ... these are not defensive stalwarts and usually are making up 2/5 of who he's out there with at any given time). Al is definitely part of the defense, if you disagree with that, then we aren't watching the same games. He might have mental farts and forgets to stop the ball at times but he's way way WAY better than defensively advertised so far this year.

 

you know why kevin love is overrated? because he's never done this in a playoff game.

No really, Kevin Love isn't to be talked about at such a high level anymore. In his sole season of being injury and free and the leader of the Wolves, they had one of the worst records and ended out with the #2 pick.

No true superstar does that. Heck, the Rockets last year with Harden had a worse team than he did that year and he got us to the playoffs.

Franchise players get it done, the magnitude by which is how far they can carry you. LeBron James is like an instant 2nd round or even CF appearance just on pure talent.

Love is overrated.

Big Al is good but in today's NBA,he's a C. And your C cannot be such a poor defensive player. Otherwise, yeah, his offensive mvoes are very, very good. And he's very underrated in that regard.

 

He is only two yeas older than Jordan Hill and 3 years younger than wade.

 

I kinda wanted Al Jefferson last year, but I remember seeing a box score where Howard DOMINATED Al Jefferson with LA. As good as Al is, I'm so pumped we have Howard!!!!

 

I like Jefferson's game, the man gave Yao fits .

 

He's the Rudy Gay of power forwards.

 

I was thinking exact same thing after he put up 30 pts and 8 reb tonight and kept seeing stat lines of 20-10, 25-10, 30-10, and 40-10 from Jefferson recently. Then I Googled "Al Jefferson and Clutchfans" and look what comes up, lol.

I tend to think b/c he's not been on winning teams combined with the fact he's been playing in a small media market in terms of the NBA.