Season in Statistics: Rebounding and a Couple Differentials

Hehe nah, for real, it was great to see us winning the rebounding battle this year. To go from a -1.0 to a +5.4 is insane. Greg Oden certainly contributed, and it’s obvious that most of the rest of the team stepped up as well.

Great to see. Hopefully the only thing that causes us to get fewer rebounds next year is the fact that we’re making more shots. :-)

that is all

Greg Oden should be able to stay out of foul trouble better, having gained experience and having the refs more familiar with him. Every minute he plays is more rebounding dominance.

Nic Batum has great potential, more experience and confidence will mean more rebounds (and more production generally).

As I recall, Martell Webster is a good rebounder, having him back will also help.

Having more competition for playing time should push Travis Outlaw to work harder – he has the physical gifts to be a tremendous contributor on the boards with a little more effort.

Rebounding should become even more of a strength.

We complain that he has not gotten his speed and athleticism back when discussing his defense. But he is already such a huge body you can’t easily push away and adept enough at boxing out that he can gobble up rebounds against most other big men. He also has excellent hands (I remember that one-handed rebound high behind his head against Philly). When he can jump even higher and move in position faster, that should help him especially on the offensive boards.

We don’t have to discuss that Joel is a rebounding monster, his rebounding percentage on the defensive boards was extremely high this season (33.1%) for a player who gets regular rotation minutes.

LaMarcus is not exactly a rebounding monster, but decent about on the level of Lamar Odom, Udonis Haslem or Dirk Nowitzki and one rebound per game behind All-Star (debatable) David West. If he could further improve by this one (West) or two (Gasol) rebounds per game, that should really help to make the frontcourt unbeatable on the battle for rebounds.

Brandon is very good at rebounding for a guard, one of only 15 players who primarily played guard this season with a rebounding percentage higher than 7% and more than 300 boards total (and that list includes Durant who I don’t see as a guard). He is on a level with the best guys there like Wade and almost Kobe, see Basketball Reference.

A nice contribution came from Rudy who is very good at anticipating balls that bounce further away. He already got over 200 rebounds this season which I think is strong for a rookie with his minutes (he is on a level with Chalmers and Gordon who got over 600 more minutes).

Blake got his numbers from last year again with 2.5 per game (2.4 last year) which is not great but okay for a point guard.

Travis unfortunately has regressed a bit again from 4.6 to 4.1 per game this year despite getting one more minute per game (331 total, minus 45 year on year). He has all the tools to be a very good rebounding forward with his elite athleticism and long arms, but too often seems to take a play off and let others (or the opposition when things go wrong) take the rebound. It’s no coincidence Rice (and the coaches) challenge him to work harder in that category. Per 36 minutes, Nicolas already beat him by .1 (5.4 to 5.3) registering 220 total in limited minutes.

But overall as Dave has pointed out, this is already a very good rebounding team and I don’t see why it shouldn’t get even better.

How many more jumpers did this team take than in years past? That’s your key.

1) Far and away the most important. Unless I am recalling the early 90’s Blazers incorrectly, the reason they were feared opponents was because they were one of the biggest teams in the league and controlled the boards. I seem to recall that everything came from that ability to dominate the boards.

2) Yes. As Norsktroll points out, it is reasonable to expect Greg to get better. And as upper corner reminds us, LaMarcus was picking up his pace during the second half of the season.

3) I don’t have to attribute it to anything. You’ve answered that question already. Greg Oden, plus a healthy, motivated, relaxed Joel Pryzbilla.

4) I think that simple growth is going to play a big part in Portland improving their win total by 5 – 8 games next season. By himself, a healthy Martell represents a better improvement than any player we could draft with a lottery selection. Besides Oden likely getting better, I’m convinced that what we have seen of LaMarcus is just scratching the surface. I think he’s going to be the kind of player that Rasheed Wallace could have been – one of the top two or three PF’s in the game. I can’t imagine Rudy and Nic not getting better next season. Even Steve Blake is likely to improve his game. The really smart ones never stop refining their game. There are still aspects to Blake’s game we haven’t seen. For example he is a much better passer on the break than what most fans think. We don’t see that because the opportunity is not there in Nate’s offense. I also believe that we are going to see more penetration from Steve in the future.

Next season should see a Blazer team that is far more comfortable. They are going to have the confidence that comes with knowing that McMillan’s way of playing basketball works and, just as important, understanding it to the point they do it without thinking about it. I think that’s something that many of the critics of either Nate or some of the players haven’t recognized. For the past three seasons McMillan has been teaching his guys how to play the game. The focus has been on learning and development more than just winning games. This season, we started seeing the results of that work. Next season is when I think it really pays off.