Keeping Al on this team this year was flawed from the start. He’s in his prime, coming off major knee surgery, from which he worked his arse off to recover. How did we treat him? We traded away the two most complimentary pieces for someone who is not going to play until 2011 or 2012, and team him up with Love, who is about the least complimentary front line pairing with Jefferson that you could imagine.

Maybe no one could anticipate a run in with the law, but something was going to snap this year for Jefferson if we didn’t take immediate steps towards the playoffs this year.

I don’t disagree with anything the Wolves did in re-rebuilding because the Foye-Jefferson duo was vastly underwhelming, and Kevin Love is flat out an all-around better player. But as I noted several weeks ago when I wrote an article pushing for a move to the Bulls, I would be absolutely shocked if Jefferson didn’t want out of here. To think otherwise would assume that he lacks any competitive drive what so ever. It’s BS – when Jefferson says in the paper, “I’m glad I’m not going to Chicago,” I would have loved to hear the inflection in his voice. He’s been moping for weeks.

And the fact is we could have had two nice pieces in Deng and Thomas that would have filled wholes that we have that we will probably not fill in the draft or free agency. Or we could have easily went after Kevin Martin, who would finally give us a solid two scorer. Yes, there was a good reason to wait until summer with Al, but it was a very close call, and it already looks like this is going to bite us.

If his value was not already veering toward Zach Randolph (traded for expirings last summer), it certainly is now.

Oh, and Jonny Flynn should have been a 15-20 pick. Every day the Flynn-Curry debacle is looking even WORSE than Roy-Foye. An “F” for Kahn on that pick.

Meet your new boss Wolves fans, same as the old.

if Sealy isn’t mentioned in Jefferson’s “formal apology”

that I have little to no idea what you are trying to say.

…in Anoka County all 30 days are stayed for a first offense where the offender pleads guilty at arraignment.

And furthermore, I don’t think this site has given Kahn a pass on picking Flynn over Curry at all.

One thing I will agree with SoGG on is that we shouldn’t assume that Jefferson is a good guy. I don’t know whether I speak for all Minnesotans, but Kirby Puckett forever removed sports heroes from my life. I appreciate good playing on the court/field. I do not assume it represents a player’s behavior off of it.

that you had to see PD’s comment. ;-)

otherwise the franchise would have moved to one of the Koreas by now.

or $300k to drive your own car?

I’d actually say it should be more… but that’s a lot of money! 2 games seems a little weak though.

let it go and come back and talk with us.

..Al likely had at least 10 beers or most of 2 bottles of wine or 10 tequila shots or 5 very large martinis in a relatively short period of time.
My reasoning:
Game started at about 8:10p (IIRC), the box score lists the game time as 2:13. So, even if Al trotted off the court and popped a beer in the shower at 10:30 he would have had to consume 10 additional drinks in the next two-and-a-half hours to blow a 0.12 at 1:10am.
If he weighs 265 (as listed) it would take 10 drinks in 2 hours or 11 in 2.5 hours, roughly (according to online bac calculators – it takes about 8 in that time to blow a 0.08) to blow a 0.12. You have to be pretty committed to getting lit to throw back a beer every 12 minutes for more than 2 hours. And to get behind the wheel after drinking at that speed? Oy.

.

… so he probably isn’t a total stranger to the “feel good” scene. ;)

(To be clear, that was not meant as a shot at Al but as a shot at Shaddy, whom I still detest for his selfishness and for wasting his talent and the Wolves’ draft pick.)

The truth is, all of these guys drink, sometimes to excess, and many smoke pot and do other drugs. They’re rich twenty-somethings. It comes with the territory. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about Wall Street, Silicon Valley, or the NBA—rich twenty-somethings (all twenty-somethings) drink.

Mad Dog aside, the Wolves haven’t employed many teetotalers. Think about this list: Eddie Griffin (R.I.P.). JR Rider. Ricky Buckets. (Ricky’s exploits are basically common knowledge, and they’re an easy target for comedic fun. Just ask Bill Simmons, who makes fun of Ricky’s drinking in approximately 75% of his columns but has probably gotten drunk with Ricky when both were in Boston. On a less funny note, there’s an LA-based columnist who, in an extremely unprofessional manner, refers to Ricky Davis in his columns as “the druggie.”) Doug West (who appeared to be one of our best citizens, but turned out to be an alcoholic.) Vin Baker. Stephon Marbury. (Steph admitted to smoking marijuana last summer. At least I think he did—the Vaseline in his mouth made his speech patterns all-but-unintelligible in that Youtube video.)

There are many others, including current Wolves.

The point isn’t to name names or to “out” anyone; the point is to say that Al driving home with a .12 BAC isn’t a good reason to sound alarm bells about his character or any “demons” he may or may not be facing. At 24 years old, Al’s part of the current binge-drinking generation. I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out that he seldom drinks, but when he does it’s to excess. As others have pointed out, he might not have had more than a few drinks or shots since he was presumably drinking on an empty stomach while dehydrated and fatigued.

So no, I’m not ready to disown Jefferson for this citation. Running down the list, I’d say: Careless? Yes. Stupid? Yes. Unforgivable. No. A representation of his “true” character? I have no idea, and I suspect that no one on this board knows.

The carelessness aspect of the citation is as dumb and unforgivable as the offense itself. Any public figure who drinks ought to have his/her own breathalyzer—they’re not very expensive and are easily and legally obtainable—and should never drive when their BAC reading is close to the legal limit. Obviously Al didn’t use one on Saturday night.

Al’s BAC is the least worrying part of this whole fuck-up, at least to me. Having a few drinks on a Saturday night after having added another “L” to an already long losing streak, in which you’ve been injured and played below your ability while being derided incessantly by your home fans doesn’t strike me as an unusual, or even an unhealthy, thing to do. I thank goodness no one was hurt and I hope Al learned a lesson, but people are reading way too much into this. I don’t “condone” drinking and driving, but as Andy pointed out, the stigma that our culture attaches to the offense leads to emotional overreactions that aren’t evoked by other equally reckless actions. I personally believe LeBron’s and Adrian Petersen’s race car antics are much more dangerous to my and others’ safety than Al Jefferson’s, but this just adds fuel to the anti-Al Jeff fire. Empirical research suggests a high probability that at least a quarter of the people denouncing Al’s behavior have engaged in it themselves, and I find the hypocrisy and judgment nauseating. As a native Minnesotan who has lived in various places around the USA and other countries, I can say that this is a somewhat uniquely “Minnesotan” reaction. We like to publicly denounce irresponsible alcohol use while engaging in such behavior in the privacy of our own homes or our friends’ homes. To play up a stereotype, it might be a function of the repressive, passive-aggressive stoicism common among the Norwegian-Lutheran culture that predominates in parts of the state. Or maybe it’s something else. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. But it’s strange to me that people are making character judgments over a matter that boils down to carelessness and bad luck.