Why is Al Jefferson so underrated? (Biggest All-Star snub ever?)

[1987_Lakers]

Can you believe guys like Bosh, J. Johnson, Millsap, DeRozan & Hibbert made the All-Star team over this guy? It just doesn't make sense, Jefferson has had a better season than all of those guys. It's not like he's playing on a horrible team either, his Bobcats are just over .500 and are making the playoffs.

The guy is averaging 22 pts and 10.5 rbs on 50% shooting for a playoff team and he still wasn't voted to the All-Star game in the atrocious East? The fans and the coaches who voted should be ashamed of themselves.

[Legends66NBA7]

I believe his team was sub.500. Take it up with one of the forward positions. But I agree that Johnson shouldn't have been there at all.

It was all on the coaches who screwed up.


Also, I think Al missed some games (around the time of the voting) that ultimately cost him a spot.


EDIT - My mistake, he actually did average 20/10 pre-all star. He's been averaging 25/11/2 on 53% post-all star.

[Nets fan 93]

He started to really beast out after the allstar break

[Legends66NBA7]

As for Al being underrated... he plays for Charlotte. Michael Jordan is more recognized than anyone on the Bobcats.

[1987_Lakers]

He wasn't averaging 20/10 pre-all star. And I believe his team was sub.500. Take it up with one of the forward positions. But I agree that Johnson shouldn't have been there at all.

It was all on the coaches who screwed up.


Also, I think Al missed some games (around the time of the voting) that ultimately cost him a spot.

Jefferson was averaging 20/10.5 pre all-star, he has averaged 25/11 post all-star. He has been beasting all season and he should have easily been voted ahead of Bosh at least.

[Legends66NBA7]

Jefferson was averaging 20/10.5 pre all-star, he has averaged 25/11 post all-star. He has been beasting all season and he should have easily been voted ahead of Bosh at least.

I edited my post after looking it up, I actually wasn't sure.

But I agree he should have been there. At the time, most said Lowry was the biggest snub in terms of his production and team record. Lowry is the best player for the Raptors.

[IncarceratedBob]

He is literally the worst defender in the NBA

[Carbine]

A classic case of the per game numbers not correlating to actual impact.

He's still a good player. Just not what those numbers depict, which is borderline elite.

[1987_Lakers]

He is literally the worst defender in the NBA

Jefferson isn't known for his defense, but the Bobcats have the #6 ranked defense in the league.:confusedshrug:

[Legends66NBA7]

Jefferson isn't known for his defense, but the Bobcats have the #6 ranked defense in the league.:confusedshrug:

That and Jefferson is actually having his best defensive season.

[magnax1]

He is literally the worst defender in the NBA
No hes not. Not even remotely close.
But lel at this post. Jefferson stats are better than his actual impact.

[ralph_i_el]

Can you believe guys like Bosh, J. Johnson, Millsap, DeRozan & Hibbert made the All-Star team over this guy? It just doesn't make sense, Jefferson has had a better season than all of those guys. It's not like he's playing on a horrible team either, his Bobcats are just over .500 and are making the playoffs.

The guy is averaging 22 pts and 10.5 rbs on 50% shooting for a playoff team and he still wasn't voted to the All-Star game in the atrocious East? The fans and the coaches who voted should be ashamed of themselves.

50% really is not good when you don't shoot 3's and you don't shoot many ft's (and you shoot sub 70% on the ones you do)
his team is below .500

he's a good player. Gives your offense direction and someone to play off. Put Bosh on the bobcats in his place and he's doing better numbers than that

[boozehound]

He is literally the worst defender in the NBA
while his D is poor, his team is playing great D with him on the floor. Its because the nba removed the center spot. Its that simple.

[Xiao Yao You]

50% really is not good when you don't shoot 3's and you don't shoot many ft's (and you shoot sub 50% on the ones you do)
his team is below .500

He's not efficient. He's a good FT shooter but doesn't draw fouls.


he's a good player. Gives your offense direction and someone to play off. Put Bosh on the bobcats in his place and he's doing better numbers than that

You can't play off of him though. Al needs the ball and everyone else has to stand around while he goes to work.

He's become highly overrated if anything. I wonder how many who go on in these threads have actually seen him play much?


while his D is poor, his team is playing great D with him on the floor. Its because the nba removed the center spot. Its that simple.

Eastern conference hasn't hurt either.

[ralph_i_el]

He's not efficient. He's a good FT shooter but doesn't draw fouls.



You can't play off of him though. Al needs the ball and everyone else has to stand around while he goes to work.

He's become highly overrated if anything. I wonder how many who go on in these threads have actually seen him play much?



Eastern conference hasn't hurt either.

That's what I was saying, he's not efficient (sub 50% on ft's is a typo my bad). He's less of a black hole than he's ever been though. Maybe he's not great to play off of but he's better than he used to be by a large margin.

[Xiao Yao You]

He improved a lot while in Utah but it's still not anything I miss having. Millsap and Demarre OTOH... :(

[Smoke117]

Al Jefferson is anything but underrated. What is so impressive about taking 18.8 shots to average 21.7 points? If there is one thing you don't want your big man to be offensively it's high a volume shooter with low rewards. His efficiency is pretty bad for a guy who's primary offense is posting up. He needs go and get that contact and bang. Same reason Aldridge is overrated. He averages 23.3 points on 20.6 shots...that's terrible for a big man. Both of are in the .520% for their TS. They get away with it on the Blazers because they have so many other weapons and those guys are actually efficient.Take Lillard for example...he averages 21ppg to Aldridge 23.3ppg, but he takes only 16.2 shots to Aldridge 20.6. So he's averaging 2.3 less points on 4.6 less shots.

Al Jefferson nor Alridge are guys you run your offense through reguarly. They aren't those kind of players. Neither has the kind of impact as scorers to be shooting as much as they do.

[ralph_i_el]

Al Jefferson is anything but underrated. What is so impressive about taking 18.8 shots to average 21.7 points? If there is one thing you don't want your big man to be offensively it's high a volume shooter with low rewards. His efficiency is pretty bad for a guy who's primary offense is posting up. He needs go and get that contact and bang. Same reason Aldridge is overrated. He averages 23.3 points on 20.6 shots...that's terrible for a big man. Both of are in the .520% for their TS. They get away with it on the Blazers because they have so many other weapons and those guys are actually efficient.Take Lillard for example...he averages 21ppg to Aldridge 23.3ppg, but he takes only 16.2 shots to Aldridge 20.6. So he's averaging 2.3 less points on 4.6 less shots.

Al Jefferson nor Alridge are guys you run your offense through reguarly. They aren't those kind of players. Neither has the kind of impact as scorers to be shooting as much as they do.

To be fair to Aldridge, his ability to shoot is what has opened up the PnR with Lillard and made them so deadly.


also Monta Ellis was a bigger all star snub this year

[Smoke117]

To be fair to Aldridge, his ability to shoot is what has opened up the PnR with Lillard and made them so deadly.


also Monta Ellis was a bigger all star snub this year

I just don't get it. The eye test is obviously the best and I've seen AL Jefferson enough to know that he has no business as the cornerstone of an offense. Past centers you could go through were always averaging at least 6-7ft's are more at their best. Robinson and Hakeem because it was just so hard to stay in front of them especially Robinson when he was in his prime and would just face up and drive right by every single center. (which is why he averaged 8.5ft's for his career and more or less 10 his first 7 seasons. It wasn't like shaq either where you wanted to foul Robinson...you were forced to because he was so quick and could handle the ball that you had to. He could hi this ft's so you didn't want him at the line...you just had no choice) Hakeem Olajuwon didn't get to the line as much but he was still getting those easy freebies at 6-7 a night, Alonzo Mourning was always averaging a lot ft's too. They got in there there and banged. Al Jefferson is soft and goes away from the basket in the post, he doesn't go at the contact which is what the great big man scorers of the past did.

If you wan't to compare Al Jefferson than compare him to Rik Smits because that's who he plays like offensively. There is nothing underrated about a guy who has never lifted any team he was on. He doesn't make players around him better or is so dominant like David Robinson his rookie season when they won 30 or so more games just by adding him.

[ralph_i_el]

I just don't get it. The eye test is obviously the best and I've seen AL Jefferson enough to know that he has no business as the cornerstone of an offense. Past centers you could go through were always averaging at least 6-7ft's are more at their best. Robinson and Hakeem because it was just so hard to stay in front of them especially Robinson when he was in his prime and would just face up and drive right by every single center. (which is why he averaged 8.5ft's for his career and more or less 10 his first 7 seasons. It wasn't like shaq either where you wanted to foul Robinson...you were forced to because he was so quick and could handle the ball that you had to. He could hi this ft's so you didn't want him at the line...you just had no choice) Hakeem Olajuwon didn't get to the line as much but he was still getting those easy freebies at 6-7 a night, Alonzo Mourning was always averaging a lot ft's too. They got in there there and banged. Al Jefferson is soft and goes away from the basket in the post, he doesn't go at the contact which is what the great big man scorers of the past did.

If you wan't to compare Al Jefferson than compare him to Rik Smits because that's who he plays like offensively. There is nothing underrated about a guy who has never lifted any team he was on. He doesn't make players around him better or is so dominant like David Robinson his rookie season when they won 30 or so more games just by adding him.

the rules today don't support post play.

[Smoke117]

the rules today don't support post play.

The game has definitely given favor to perimeter players that it's become a joke (harden...ugh), but as far as the big man they really let them get away with things they always have. Look at dwight when he averaged 23ppg...he was averaging 13.4 shot attempts to 11.7fta's and shooting a decent 60% from the line for him. The game hasn't changed so much as the fact that no big man bangs anymore. Even the top big men (who were PF's basically) like Duncan, Garnett, Dirk, Sheed aren't bangers. They weren't bigger bangers BEFORE the rule change in 05-06, but always were throwing turn arounds instead of putting the ball on the floor (especially garnett and sheed.

Garnett basically had ONE move in the post and it was a turn around. It was either on or it wasn't. I remember in 08 when he was going against Sheed who to me was the best one on one defender in the post in the league at the time and he embarrassed him. He was making EVERYTHING. That was more of an anomaly though because Garnett has aways been streaky with that turn around. The fact of the matter is that big men are just going AWAY from the basket every single season. Look at Roy Hibbert...7'2" and he's ****ing terrible lol. How can you be that terrible in the post when you've been big all your life and should have been practicing that the entire time you've been growing up playing basketball...unless he grew like 10 inches when he was 18-20.

[Lebron23]

He just turned 37. And he is out of the league since he was 33.,

[iamgine]

IIRC voting for All Star starts around late december till mid january.

At this time:

Charlotte was a sub .500 team
Jefferson was missing a lot of games at the early part of the season
Jefferson was not averaging 20-10 at this point
Charlotte started a really bad losing streak right around this voting period
Charlotte was a very small market team in the first place


tbh I'd be more surprised if he had made the all star team.