Most of us had huge hopes for Al Jefferson this season. This was supposed to be the first of his 15 seasons as Boston's dominant low-post threat, and though Jefferson has disappointed, we won't blame Danny Ainge for this. Some have pointed to Ainge's offseason designation of Jefferson as Boston's lone untouchable trade option as a bit of heavy-handedness that got to the kid's head, but that can't be trusted. Instead of rocking fat and sassy through the summer months, he came to camp in shape and ready to play. Unfortunately, it was a sprained left ankle that really got him off his game, leaving him hesitant and unsure in his moves or footwork, and the Celtics sputtered.
The C's are sputtering no more, courtesy of Ryan Gomes' brilliant play (13.4 and eight rebounds since Feb. 12), but Jefferson can't get on track. Since his return on March 1, the kid hasn't looked right, averaging 6.3 points and four rebounds in 14 minutes. As usually happens with ankle sprains, he overcompensated, developed bad habits and ended up spraining his right ankle on Feb. 3, which put him on the shelf for the rest of the month. The Celtics have 14 games left in the season in which to engender some confidence in their once-and-future rock down low.
It's an error in our favor, so I'll not objecting, but I don't know what summer camp Kelly was watching in which Jefferson showed up in shape and ready to play. If anything, Jefferson's poor play in the Vegas summer league and in preseason was pretty remarkable, especially to those who saw how well he had played in the Indiana series four months earlier. This was the subject of several posts on the email listserve that pre-dated this blog, including a few by our Arizona bureau chief, who's been strangely silent lately.
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RE: Jefferson
While you can't deny that Jefferson's trade value has slipped, I'm not overly worried (yet) about his performance. It's true that many people did predict that he would have a breakout year this year. But I think we need to keep some perspective. Jefferson played a ton of minutes in his first year, especially for a high schooler making the leap to the NBA. Keep in mind that great players like Jermaine O'Neal and Tracy McGrady basically rode the pine for their first few years in the league. I'm not saying Jefferson is in their league. But we placed huge, unrealistic expectations on a 19-20 year old kid. (And to be fair, so did a lot of other people, both fans and media.)
Second, as demonstrated back in this February post, Jefferson is (was) still the most productive Celtic PF/C in terms of points and rebounds per 48 minutes. The key here is to nurture his development and help him figure out how to stay on the court for 30 minutes per game and keep up that productivity. Part of that is learning how to play better, both offensively and defensively, individually and within the team concept. The other part is getting into better shape and taping both ankles every time he plays, things which hopefully are now painfully obvious to him (pun intended).
Lastly, I think there is one extenuating circumstance that might help explain some of the issues from this season. Don't forget that Jefferson's home town was hit hard by Katrina. (He comes from a town about 100 miles north of New Orleans in Mississippi.) Nobody in his family was hurt, but his house was without power for days, and the effects of the storm directly impacted many of his friends and family members. While I doubt that this was a huge factor in his offseason conditioning regiment or his season long mental focus, maybe it does play some minor role. Like I said, he's just a 20 year old kid trying to figure out how to make it in the NBA.
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