If a Big Al falls in the playoffs, does it make it sound?
Recently the Lottery Mafia’s own Jon Elliott wrote about Big Al Jefferson leading a basketball revolution in Charlotte. Sharing a surname with the US Founding Father, Jefferson’s stately play this year has been described by sports television pundits as “Balling” and even the hard to please Stephen A. Smith of ESPN’s “First Take,” while providing some context to LeBron’s 61 point night, gave the Bobcats such laudatory praise as “They’re decent now.” The Bobcats are indeed decent, hovering steadily just under the .500 mark for awhile and sitting securely in 7th place in the East. Big Al has a lot to do with their new found progress, having a career year worthy of All-Star consideration. But does this revolution come with a price? After this revolution is commenced will it lead to a long reign of postseason glory for the soon-to-be Hornets or will it fizzle out and become mired as quickly as it came, leading Charlotte back into the familiar confines of lottery purgatory?
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas Jefferson
Charlotte’s second NBA franchise doesn’t really have a tree of liberty. For a fleeting instant in the 2009-10 season it was all they could manage to grow a tiny sapling that quickly became swept in the first round by the Dwight Howard led Orlando Magic. New owner Michael Jordan soon after decided that to grow anything substantial, the ground needed a lot more refreshing with blood. And yes, verily the front office tandem of Higgins and Cho did quite well to saturate Charlotte soil with tanking irrigation. Seven wins one season followed by 21 the next, two lame duck coaches in Paul Silas and Mike Dunlap, and high draft picks that include the two youngest players in their respective drafts. The message was self-evident: Charlotte was building seriously and methodically for the first time in their short history.
Then Al Jefferson signed. It became the biggest free agent signing in Bobcats’ history by default yet it was not universally acclaimed at the time. Currently, the signing appears to be a resounding success as the Bobcats are poised for their second postseason in franchise history. But the reasons for why the signing was a bit of a head-scratcher have not become irrelevant simply because Charlotte is competent in the extremely pathetic Eastern Conference. While Al puts up gaudy numbers, under the surface lie ever-present concerns.
Big Al is the king of raw stats and the hero of box score watchers everywhere. Al has a career average of 16.8 points and 9.1 rebounds a game over 10 years. He is one of five players currently averaging 20 and 10 this season, the other four being: Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMarcus Cousins, and Kevin Love. Al’s current stretch of the last 15 games is even more impressive:
Not all rebounds are created equal unfortunately. They fall into two general categories, contested and uncontested. Al gets a lot more of the latter. His contested rebound percentage is 29.8 percent and seven of his usual 10 boards per game are of the uncontested, fall into your lap variety. Why is this bad? Because in the playoffs those uncontested rebounds are a lot harder to come by. How bad is 29.8%? With a minimum of 30 minutes and eight rebound a game, there are only two players with a worse percentage, Carmelo Anthony (29.7 percent) and LaMarcus Aldridge (27.2 percent). Melo is a SF/PF so there is his excuse and LMA’s paltry percentage is a big reason why Portland brought in Robin Lopez to play alongside him. Lopez’s contested percentage is currently the best at 50.4 percent (minimum of 30 minutes and 8 rebounds a game). Charlotte doesn’t have a Robin Lopez to get those tough boards that Al cannot. Instead, they have athletic rookie Cody Zeller coming off the bench for 17 minutes a game to complement Al. Ever wondered why head coach Steve Clifford is so insistent on playing Zeller important minutes even though he makes rookie mistakes constantly and keeps throwing up bricks from mid range? It might have to do with his contested rebound percentage of 44.9 (if he played starter’s minutes it would likely be closer to McRobert’s percentage of 33.4).
Ah, but those silky smooth post moves can’t be fool’s gold, can they? His eFG percentage is 49.8 which is not completely comforting. A lot of this stems from where Al likes to operate compared to most big men. Bigs tend to have remarkably high percentages because they get lots of dunks and similar high percentage shots (i.e. Dwight Howard at 59.1 percent). Al’s scoring relies on a complex, finesse-oriented mid-range game from the high post to the left block. Kind to the eyes, not so much to the percentages. Context time: With a minimum of 30 minutes and at least 15 points a game, the NBA leader in eFG% is some guy named LeBron James with 62.4 percent. Even that Kevin Durant dude that shoots pull up threes galore is 56.3 percent. Al’s percentage is more comparable to such behemoths like Mike Conley (49.9), Chris Paul (49.6) and a guy fairly infamous for his inefficiency, Monta Ellis (47.9).
Everybody and their mothers know that Al Jefferson and defense go together like Apple and PC. Amazingly, (seriously coach of the year worthy stuff) Clifford has organized Charlotte into a stout defensive unit held together by linchpin Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in spite of Jefferson’s sloth-like lateral quickness, inability to oppose gravity and pick and roll defense that is more in spirit than actual corporeal form. Al’s opponent’s field goal percentage at the rim (rim protection in a nutshell) is 54.4 percent which is seventh worse among players with a minimum of 30 minutes and at least 5 opponent field goal attempts at the rim (to weed out all the little guys). That crew would be, from worst to Al: Thad Young, Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Nene, and Zach Randolph. If I wanted to be mean I could say that Al is the second worst full time center in this category but honestly Al has helped himself with some catty ball swipes on players flashing by him in the paint, enough for a steal a game.
A huge part of the reason why Clifford has been able to sweep Al’s awful defense under the rug and thereby keeping Al from being a net negative is by greatly limiting the number of possessions for each team by slowing the tempo down and prioritizing transition defense over second chance opportunities via crashing the offensive glass. Basically, Charlotte with its tenth slowest pace of 95.20 is the antithesis of the D’Antoni 7 seconds or less offense of Steve Nash’s glory days. Clifford’s offense revolves around posting up Al and creating space for him to work. When it works well, everyone else fills space and use clever cuts and ball screens to create passing angles for Al to assist or re-post. When it doesn’t work well, Al holds the ball too long in an inefficient area of the floor while everybody else stands around and watches. Fortunately for the Bobcats, the offense has been well-organized more often than not and Al has been on a torrid scoring spree to bail them out during bad times.
But all season long there has been a troubling trend when Charlotte plays good teams versus bad ones. Against bad or mediocre teams, which is the majority of the East, Clifford’s no-tempo, lean on Big Al scheme works relatively well. Against decided playoff teams the wheels tend to fall off, and in a hurry. The Others (Bobcats not named Jefferson) frequently disappear, especially on offense. Kemba Walker tends to struggle finding his own offense, MKG is reduced to standing awkwardly in the corner like a shamed puppy, Gerald Henderson just waits for an excuse to go into a turnaround fadeaway, and McRoberts, like Walker, has trouble finding the balance between looking for his shot vs. getting Al a bucket. Smart teams like the Spurs, Thunder and Heat seem to have figured out Charlotte’s Achilles heel which is they can’t lose to Al Jefferson alone. Al’s monster 36 and 19 night against Miami for example was easily overshadowed by LeBron’s 61 and that was no coincidence. Miami doesn’t really have anybody that can guard Big Al straight up nor did it matter. Charlotte doesn’t have one single player other than Al that checks into the game with a warm touch. Al is the only microwave on a team of wood stoves. The next best scorer is Kemba and he has been wildly inconsistent and is generally a volume scorer by nature.
Look at it this way, if the Bobcats were an automobile, Al Jefferson would be their engine. Unfortunately, even if the engine is running strongly it doesn’t matter if the car’s other parts aren’t operating correctly. Why is Al’s supporting cast so inconsistent? Basically, the Bobcats were well into the process of building a race car when they decided to drop a tractor engine into it (Al) and hire a farmer to drive it (Clifford). The Others are young, athletic, fast, and defensive minded; the Bobcats are born to run. Kemba as a diminutive but lightning quick score first PG, Henderson an athletic slasher, MKG an athletic slasher and lock down defender, McRoberts an athletic stretch 4 with terrific handles for his size who can start the break, Bismack Biyombo a project slowly but surely molding into an elite rim protector and rebounder as well as one of the best screen setters, top 4 pick Cody Zeller drafted almost solely for his ability to run the floor and athleticism, Jeff Taylor another athletic defender, etc. Clifford’s slowed down tempo has been better than solid at highlighting Al’s offensive skills and using the team’s overall defensive potential to mask Al’s lack of defense but on offense it’s handicapping the rest of the team. The emphasis on transition defense deprives the Others of 2nd chance opportunities (negates the hustle and scrappy skills of MKG, Henderson, McRoberts, and Zeller) and the emphasis on limiting possessions by playing in the half court deprives fast break opportunities for easy buckets, harming the rhythm of everyone sans Jefferson.
So Charlotte has a roster of full court, uptempo players all trying to modify their games to fit Al’s and Clifford’s system. For a team that has quite honestly been retched the past two years, they’re actually doing an admirable job of this. Kemba has made nice albeit inconsistent strides in being a facilitator, McRoberts has taken and made more threes this year than in his career to help space the floor for Al, Zeller has attempted to transition from a college 5 to a floor running 4, MKG continues to focus on his role of guarding the other team’s best scorer, Biyombo has adjusted well to limited minutes off the bench, and journeyman Anthony Tolliver as well as recently acquired ex-Bucks Gary Neal and Luke Ridnour bring more perimeter shooting to help spackle the holes in the half court. But putting a wolf, er, Bobcat in sheep’s clothing doesn’t make it a sheep and the Big Al-Cats as currently constructed have an extremely limited chance of making any real noise in the playoffs for the foreseeable future. The one dimensional Cats will likely find their Al-chilles heel more exposed by playoff scouting and whole practices designed to either stop Al if possible or let Al score as he pleases to the detriment of his team.
The tree in Charlotte may be growing again but nothing indicates that Jordan will be harvesting any fruit from it.
Statistics taken 3-5-14, courtesy of NBA.com
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
