After years of signing the Troy Hudsons and Mark Madsens of the NBA to overlong contracts where their annual salaries aren’t sympathetic with their value, it is nice to see the Wolves make a smart signing. Al Jefferson is set to make roughly $13 million for the next six year. I feel fairly confident that the Wolves were able to make the deal at below market value; an imperfect list of players set to earn $12-$15 million per over the next few years includes Gilbert Arenas, Mike Bibby, Chauncey Billups, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Vince Carter, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Larry Hughes, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Andrei Kirilenko, Raef LaFrentz, Kenyon Martin, Yao Ming, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph, Michael Redd , Jason Richardson, Peja Stojakovic, Amare Stoudemire, Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace, and Rasheed Wallace. We’re going to exclude Kenyon Martin from the list because he only played 62 minutes over two games last year (sorry, K-Mart). So if we’re counting (and we are), that’s three point guards, five shooting guards, four small forwards, seven power forwards, and four centers. I must admit to being shocked by this, as I was expecting the distribution to tend towards shooting guards and power forwards.
So how does Big Al stack up against the guys in his income bracket? Let’s go to the per minute numbers!
From this we can see that Jefferson stacks up amazingly well when compared to his peers. He’s second in offensive rebounds (third in total rebounds), and is seventh in blocks and turnovers (61st in the league in blocking, 17th among PFs; 53 in turnovers at his position). And though he scored 3 points less per 48 than the group’s average, this is mainly due to being the #2 scoring option behind Pierce. As the #1 option in Minnesota and with the ninth best floor efficiency, he should be able to pop the points up to at least group average. Being in 9th in the group is no shame, as he is behind some absolutely insane numbers from Boozer, Howard, and Stoudemire. Actually, let’s divert to that for a moment (I’ll address age after the next paragraph).
Boozer, Howard, and Stoudemire put up 1.12, 1.21, and 1.15 points per field goal attempt (PTS/FGA, which is (Points – Free Throws Made)/Field Goal Attempts). The best PTS/FGA in the league was delivered by none other than Dejuan Wagner, who hit a perfect 3.00 for the season. Of course, he played a total of 7 minutes in 1 game, shooting and hitting one (1) three-pointer over the course of his season. Behind him, Boozardmire was 42nd, 16th, and 27th. But if we take those who played less than 500 minutes last season, then the group comes in 27th, 7th, and 15th. So I think the Wolves might want to preemptively double team these guys when they come to Minneapolis this year.
But back to Big Al. One of the key brilliances of this deal (for both sides) is that it ends when he is 28. At that point the typical NBA player generally has 2 or 3 years left at the height of his powers. So the T-Wolves can resign him for another 6 (and overpaying him until he’s 34 is fine, within reason), or he can go out and certainly get a max deal from another team.
His youth is also a mark of distinction among the class he is in he’s bracketed by Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh, and is five years younger than the average age. And he comes up well when compared to those two. I would say he’s firmly sandwiched in as the second best of those three. He beats Howard in everything except for assists, personal fouls, and free throw percentage. And the first two can be worked on with different coaching and game plans, while I don’t feature the free throws as disastrous, as he’s certainly not going join Ben Wallace at the stinginess stripe any time soon. On the flip side, Jefferson is no Dwight Howard. There are some things we take for granted in life, and until we examine them we don’t see how exceptional they really are. Dwight Howard’s play was like that for me until I started writing this post. He’s dominant at every aspect of the game outside of fouls and free throws. If he ever gets that figured out he’s going to be an unstoppable monster of a player. As a precaution, Japan should call out the National Guard and being to evacuate Tokyo.
I’m very pleased about this signing, less so about the decision to decline Gerald Green’s option. So far Green hasn’t demonstrated the ability to do much beyond score a lot of points. That’s something that there isn’t too much of on this team, as Jefferson, Green, and Foye were the only three to be above league average in points per 48 last year. A healthy McCants would make that a bit easier, but for a team like the Wolves it doesn’t hurt to have an extra scorer around, especially when he hit 36.68% on his threes last year (which is 6% higher than his rookie season mark). At worst, Green is a solid second unit scorer. Considering how much teams have to pay for that scoring, and that the Wolves should be waiting until 2009 off-season to make major free agent moves, I don’t see how the team can justify essentially giving up another year with their second youngest player (he's older than Brewer by 37 days). Fortunately, they picked up Rashad McCants’ option for next year. Based on how his apparent complete recovery from microfracture surgery, I expect him to be competing with Foye and Jefferson to be the face of the franchise by season’s end.
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