re: Grantland Thoughts on Al Jefferson

The key passage for me is this:

quote:

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We have almost a decade of evidence now that Jefferson's failings on defense outweigh his very real value on offense. His teams have generally been worse with him on the floor than with him on the bench,

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I looked on NBA.com to see his ON/OFF ratings. They only go back to the 07-08 season with player data. From that time until this season, Jefferson only had two years where his team performed better when he was on the floor.

This isn't a be all, end all stat- like Lowe mentions in his piece, there is noise here and he suffered an ACL injury in 09. But that's still half a decade of data. And we're talking about Utah and Minnesota- not exactly stacked teams. That they were usually better when one of their best players was on the bench seems a little strange.

Plus as awesome as Jefferson/Anderson would be on offense, I have no idea how you play that pair together on defense.