Al Jefferson Poised to Be Big Cog in Well-Oiled Jazz Machine

Filed under: Jazz, FanHouse Exclusive, NBA Preseason

PHOENIX -- Al Jefferson is in his first preseason camp with the Jazz, after being traded out of the David Kahn vortex in Minnesota for reasons that were questionable at best. He expected things to be different, especially coming from a relatively fluid organization where a new coach was doing what he could to implement his system, while constantly making tweaks to it along the way.



He expected to encounter Jerry Sloan, the rigid disciplinarian, who has a reputation of being the strictest of strict among the NBA's sideline leaders. Jefferson, however, was pleasantly surprised.



"Honestly, I thought it would be a lot worse," Jefferson told FanHouse, after his Jazz took care of the Suns 105-100 on Tuesday night in Phoenix. "Coach has another side of him I've seen that I didn't see [when I was] with the Timberwolves. He likes to joke, he likes to smile every once in a while. I'd never seen him smile before I got here."



Jefferson figures to give his new coach plenty to smile about this season.





The man they called Big Al for the last three seasons in Minnesota was turning into a borderline All-Star in 2008 and 2009, giving fans real hope that he could replace the franchise player he was traded for in the summer of 2007. Jefferson averaged right around 22 points and 11 rebounds-per-game over those two seasons, before his 2009-10 campaign was cut short when he suffered a torn ACL just before the All-Star break.

 

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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/10/14/al-jefferson-poised-to-be-big-cog-in-well-oiled-jazz-machine/