Houston center Yao Ming was voted in as the West’s starting center by the fans despite Jefferson having slightly stronger statistics. A recent knee injury brought some concern over whether Yao would be able to play in the All-Star Game, but he has already returned to the Rockets’ lineup. And if an injury did occur to a West player prior to the game, Jefferson would prefer his first selection didn’t come as a replacement.
“I don’t want to be no backup plan,” Jefferson said. “But if it happens that way, I accept it. I’m not going to be sitting back on pins and needles waiting when I’m still going to have chances to make it the old-fashioned way. It’s really not any fun that way [via injury replacement].”
So who had the strongest case about his All-Star omission?
Try the league’s best post player. Al Jefferson deserved a better fate. No one, including Yao and Shaq, makes more out of his time in the paint than the Minnesota center.
Timberwolves coach Kevin McHale, a pretty fair post player himself, said Jefferson’s All-Star time assuredly will come.
Several Celtics also saved a measure of All-Star displeasure for the Western Conference snub of old friend Al Jefferson.
The former Celtic is averaging 22.9 points and 10.6 rebounds for the resurgent Timberwolves, who visit the Garden today.
“He’s having a great year, man,” said Kendrick Perkins [stats], who remains close with Jefferson. “He’s supposed to be an All-Star. I don’t know why he’s not, but if he keeps playing the way he is he should for sure be one next year.”
Yet, 10 times this month we’ve seen performances straight out of theatre of the absurd — the Timberwolves winning a basketball game.
“I’ll take that any month,” Hornets coach Byron Scott, whose team was one that fell to mighty Minnesota, said Wednesday. “They have a good young nucleus. They’ve got some confidence right now. I saw Detroit’s playing them today, I was like — y’all better be ready.”
“Al Jefferson’s playing like an all-star,” said Scott, who voted for Jefferson, who ended up not making the team (all the all-stars in the West are on winning squads).
The 6-10 center plays for a team that has lost a lot of games, which is a major reason he was snubbed. He also happens to play center in the same conference as Yao Ming and Shaquille O’Neal.
But Jefferson has been great all season, and the Timberwolves are no longer a pushover. In fact, Minnesota went 10-4 in January with Jefferson leading the way. He’s averaging 22.7 points and 10.5 rebounds — which is better than both Yao and Shaq.
Timberwolves forward Corey Brewer, the first-round draft choice in 2007 who is out for the season after tearing a knee ligament in November, said he is making good progress and will be playing basketball again this summer.
But right now McHale has a hot team at his command, which is to say the Timberwolves are relaxed, and not afraid to make mistakes.
“I think Kevin wanted them to understand that if you throw a pass into the stands, you have to forget about it,” a team official said of the message sent by McHale when he moved down from the general manager’s chair to the bench. “You have to realize that you’re not getting that one back, and to just keep playing.”
Playing on my high school team with kids I grew up with in northern Minnesota. We defeated the No. 1-ranked team in the state in the regional finals to get my high school to state for the first time in years. Those guys are still some of my dearest friends today.
“That’s why I keep his minutes down, so he can have a historic season. I’m trying to help him out.” — Wolves coach Kevin McHale when told Kevin Love, according to ESPN stat geeks, is having the third-most-efficient rebounding season by an NBA rookie (behind Clifford Ray in 1971-72 and Larry Smith in 1980-81) while averaging 23 minutes a game.
Perez Hilton on Rashad McCants’ breakup with Khloe Kardashian.
A source revealed, “Khloe was devastated when she discovered evidence that Rashad was cheating with girls online. She confronted him, and he reacted angrily and tried to deny the story at first before admitting that it was true. He’d been hooking up with girls over Facebook for the past two weeks.”
His scoring average has increased from 6.7 to 7.9 to 16.0 to 21.1 to 22.7 this season. His rebounding has increased from 4.4 to 5.1 to 11.0 to 11.1 but have dropped to10.5 this season.
Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor, on the Friday night crowd of 19,111 at Target Center to see the Wolves play the Lakers: “I like it — it was just like the old days.”
