Al Jefferson: player of the week

In a sign that national attention is starting to catch up with his game, Al Jefferson was just announced as the NBA player of the week. During the last four games (all wins) Al has averaged 24 points and 15 rebounds on 55% shooting

Despite a very slow start to the season-- including missing almost three weeks of November while having his appendix removed-- Al's averages are now up to 15 points and 11 rebounds on 50% shooting, all while looking increasingly comfortable on defense. It's been great to see and a long time coming. Even more impressive than Al's (rare and) soft shooting touch is his rebounding. The guys rebounds in wins, in loses, when he's in foul trouble and not, he could probably outrebound half the league in his sleep. On the year he is now the 6th best rebounder in the whole league. Since he's slightly small for the PF position and not really a leaper, Al's rebounding looks like its testiment to his very strong innate sense of timing and how quick he is off his feet. I'd suggest that the weight he dropped last summer might have helped, except that Al's put up monster rebounding-per-48-minutes numbers ever since he came into the league

Although I don't have it handy to post, I can report that the relatively few NBA post players who put up the kinds of numbers that Al has at age 21 almost all went on to become multiple-time All Stars