The Hidden Al Jefferson

The NBA's box score for the got milk? Rookie-Sophomore game last night accidentally excluded the results of a certain Al Jefferson. The result of a little subtraction yields his stat line.

Big Al was put in the game as a late substitute for the injured Emeka Okafor and he held his own, as did the rookies overall, in the first half of the game, but it just got away from them in the second half as they ended up losing to the star-studded sophomores 133-106.

Conspicuous by his absence in the box score, at least as of around midnight on Friday, Big Al's impact was not immediately felt. His Celtic teammate Tony Allen, however, led the rookies in scoring with 17 points, tied with Luol Deng. For a kid who's supposed to be a defensive stopper, Allen sure hit some big shots, including his traditional weakside rebound putback dunk, which he somehow manages to work into every game at least once.

But this isn't about Tony, it's about Al. Let's do a little subtraction.

Total points scored by the rookies: 106. Total points scored by the players reported on the box score: 89. That leaves 17. Hello! Looks like Big Al shared with Deng and Allen the high-scoring total.

Doing the same calculation for each statistic, we get the following stat line for Big Al:

Minutes: 21
Points: 17
Field Goals Made: 7
Field Goals Attempted: 12
Free Throws Made: 3
Free Throws Attempted: 5
Offensive Rebounds: 5
Defensive Rebounds: 6
Total Rebounds: 11
Assists: 1
Personal Fouls: 6
Steals: 1
Turnovers: 1
Blocks: 1

Let's compare that to, for example, and just picking this randomly: Dwight Howard. Howard had more blocks and a better field goal percentage on fewer shots, but otherwise Jefferson had more points in more minutes, and certainly far more rebounds.

A caveat that these are not official numbers. Perhaps those will be released by the league when they realize their oversight. But in the meantime, Big Al's implied stat line is quite impressive.