Al Jefferson
The centerpiece of the Kevin Garnett trade: a low-post scorer who posted 20 and 10 a night for losing teams and never became the star Minnesota needed.
When Kevin Garnett walked out the door for Boston, the Timberwolves handed the keys to the franchise to a 22-year-old who had never started a playoff game, and asked him to be the next face of Minnesota basketball.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 4, 1985, Monticello, Mississippi |
| High school | Prentiss High School (Mississippi) |
| Drafted | No. 15 overall, 2004 (Boston Celtics) |
| Acquired | July 31, 2007, in the Kevin Garnett trade |
| Seasons as a Wolf | 3 (2007–2010) |
| Number | 25 |
The centerpiece. On July 31, 2007, Minnesota shipped Kevin Garnett to Boston in the largest package ever assembled for a single player, and Al Jefferson was the headliner. “Big Al” had reached the NBA straight out of Prentiss, Mississippi, taken 15th overall by the Celtics in 2004, and by his third year in Boston he was already a 16-and-11 low-post force. The Wolves did not view him as a supporting piece in the deal. They saw the foundation of the rebuild, the young cornerstone who would carry the franchise out of the Garnett era.
The breakout. Jefferson delivered almost immediately. In 2007-08 he played all 82 games and averaged 21.0 points and 11.1 rebounds, a throwback of pivots, up-and-unders and soft turnaround jumpers over either shoulder. He was named Western Conference Player of the Week in January 2008 after a stretch of 33.3 points and 15.3 rebounds a night, and he dropped 40 twice that season. Individually, everything the front office had hoped for arrived on schedule. Collectively, the team finished 22-60.
The knee. The next season Jefferson was better still. Through 50 games he was posting a career-high 23.1 points and 11.0 rebounds, carrying the offense on his back. Then, in February 2009, he felt a pop in his right knee, a complete ACL tear that required reconstructive surgery and ended his year. In hindsight it bent the trajectory of the whole rebuild. The Wolves stumbled home at 24-58, and the momentum from his best basketball never returned.
The shoes he couldn’t fill. Jefferson came back for 2009-10, but the explosion off the floor was gone: 17.1 points and 9.3 rebounds, a diminished version playing for new coach Kurt Rambis on a roster David Kahn was stripping to the studs. Minnesota cratered to 15-67, one of the ugliest records in franchise history. Big Al was a genuinely good player who could get you 20 in his sleep, but he never approached Garnett’s two-way dominance, and a 20-and-10 scoring average was never going to lift a roster this thin. In July 2010 the Wolves traded him to Utah for Kosta Koufos and two first-round picks, ending a three-year experiment that produced zero playoff trips.
By the numbers
Regular-season stats with Minnesota, per Basketball-Reference:
| Season | GP | PPG | RPG | APG | BPG | FG% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | 82 | 21.0 | 11.1 | 1.4 | 1.5 | .500 |
| 2008-09 | 50 | 23.1 | 11.0 | 1.6 | 1.7 | .497 |
| 2009-10 | 76 | 17.1 | 9.3 | 1.8 | 1.3 | .498 |
Wolves career totals
Totals per StatMuse (208 GP, 20.1 PPG, 10.4 RPG with Minnesota).
Franchise ranks
- 4th Points per game (20.1)
- 5th Rebounds per game (10.4)
Per StatMuse's franchise leaderboard.
Accolades
- Western Conference Player of the Week (January 2008)
- Wolves' leading scorer, 2007-08 (21.0) and 2009-10 (17.1)
- Career-high 23.1 points per game, 2008-09
Lore
The seven-for-one. The price of Garnett was staggering: Minnesota received Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair and two 2009 first-round picks, the biggest haul the league had ever surrendered for a single man. Every bit of the return was structured around the idea that Big Al could headline it.
Forty in the desert of a rebuild. During his January 2008 Player of the Week tear, Jefferson hung 40 points on the New Jersey Nets on the 27th, then did it again to Charlotte in April. On a 22-win team, nights like those were the whole point of watching, a reminder that the trade had at least brought back a real scorer.
The pop. The right-knee ACL tear in February 2009 remains the great what-if of the era. Jefferson was in the middle of his finest NBA season, and the injury cost him the back half of it, the offseason of conditioning that followed, and the burst that had made him a nightly 20-and-10 threat.
Big Al’s second act. The Utah trade was not the end of his story. Jefferson later anchored the Charlotte Bobcats’ return to the playoffs and earned All-NBA Third Team honors in 2013-14, finishing top-10 in MVP voting. He was a legitimately good NBA big man for a decade. He simply was not built to fill the shoes of a franchise legend on a team with nothing around him.
Big Al never logged a single playoff minute in a Minnesota uniform: three seasons, 208 games, and not one April that mattered.