The Nets and rebounding

NOMAM · Sep 16, 2007

With the addition of Jamaal Magloire to the front court, how much will this propel the Nets as a rebounding team in the league?

Kidd is an incredible rebounder for the PG position. Carter and Jefferson (when healthy) are also good rebounders individually. Krstic is not that great but Magloire is pretty good. 

Kidd - Carter - Jefferson - Krstic - Magloire

So 4 out of the 5 positions the Nets on most nights seemingly have the advantage on the boards. Although that one position they don't is important since it's in the front court.

Can the Nets develop into a team with a reputation of pounding the opposition on the boards? In the playoffs, when they struggle offensively, will getting second chance points with offensive boards give the Nets a significant swing in their favour like it did for the Cavs in the first two games against the Nets?

CelticKing · Sep 16, 2007

Welcome to S2 NOMAM. 

Nets look darn good right now. I really like the Magloire signing. And Kidd seems to get better every season. lol

TheMann · Sep 16, 2007

But how do you know the Nets have an "advantage" at 4 of the 5 spots without knowing who the opponent is? The Nets may have good rebounders at Kidd n Magloire and decent ones with RJ and Vince but it depends on matchups. Magloire SHOULD help our rebounding numbers as long as he doesnt get soft and keeps his attitude, unlike Marc Jackson did...

Petey · Sep 16, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing)</div><div class='quotemain'>

Welcome to S2 NOMAM. 

Nets look darn good right now. I really like the Magloire signing. And Kidd seems to get better every season. lol </div>

Yeah that's a trend to build a team around... LOL

Welcome to S2 NOMAM.

I think our best rebounding unit would have Collins in, Krstic out. Even though Collins doesn't have big rebounding numbers, he is excellent in boxing out for the others.

-Petey

NOMAM · Sep 16, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TheMann)</div><div class='quotemain'>But how do you know the Nets have an "advantage" at 4 of the 5 spots without knowing who the opponent is? The Nets may have good rebounders at Kidd n Magloire and decent ones with RJ and Vince but it depends on matchups. Magloire SHOULD help our rebounding numbers as long as he doesnt get soft and keeps his attitude, unlike Marc Jackson did...</div>

Yeah, you're right. I thought for a second about deleting that point but left it in and hit submit. It will depend on matchups. I guess what I should have said is the Nets can now be considered to have 4 good to very good rebounders in their starting lineup (assuming Magloire ends up starting).

Ma3oxuct · Sep 16, 2007

I think it depends on Krstic as well. Magloire can't take on the entire opposing team to pull down a rebound. If Krstic does not back down and boxes out, then we'll have a solid rebounding team.

jarkid · Sep 17, 2007

I believe we will be a very good rebounding team, the big different is that Jamaal and Nenad are back.

Universe · Sep 17, 2007

Like Petey said, Krstic dosen't have to be a 12 RPG type guy (don't we wish) but someone who controls his man on his back.

pegs · Sep 17, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Petey)</div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CelticKing)</div><div class='quotemain'>

Welcome to S2 NOMAM. 

Nets look darn good right now. I really like the Magloire signing. And Kidd seems to get better every season. lol </div>

Yeah that's a trend to build a team around... LOL

Welcome to S2 NOMAM.

I think our best rebounding unit would have Collins in, Krstic out. Even though Collins doesn't have big rebounding numbers, he is excellent in boxing out for the others. 

-Petey </div>

 agreed, although it seems each season, krstic is getting better at rebounding/boxing out.

#1_War_Poet_ForLife · Sep 17, 2007

VC and Kidd are ++ rebounders for their position, and RJ is decent-good. Nenad is sub-par - par, and Mags is pretty good.

Legacy · Sep 17, 2007

Kidd will almost always win the point guard rebounding battle, Carter and Jefferson as you said are good rebounders. Krstic is below average, and Magloire is good. I think our rebounding should improve as a whole this season and our front court got possibly get strogner. That is if Krstic grabs at least 6-8 rebounds a game.

#1_War_Poet_ForLife · Sep 17, 2007

6 RPG from a SG is great.

Only 4 RPG for RJ? Really?

Dumpy · Sep 17, 2007

I haven't had the chance to say this yet on this board--so it is kind of like fresh meat. here we go:

THE NUMBER OF REBOUNDS IS IRRELEVANT.

Why? Because the number of rebounds a team gets is directly related to the number of shots a team takes. The number of shots is affected by shooting percentage, the number of turnovers, and shooting fouls, etc.

The ONLY thing that matters is the number of offensive rebounds a teams gets divided by the number of offensive rebounding opportunities, in relation to the opponent's offensive rebounds divided by the number of their offensive rebounding opportunities.

When you do this calculation, you find out that the Nets are generally a TERRIBLE offensive rebounding team . . . but they typically hold their opponents to one of the lowest offensive rebounding percentages in the league, and that overall they net out to about zero--average. The key on defense is really Jason Collins--he does such a great job boxing out and allowing Kidd and Carter to get the defensive rebounds, that when he is in the game, the Nets are among the best teams at restricting the opponents' offensive rebounds. The problem, though, is that on the offensive boards, it is every man for himself--and Collins just can't jump. 

It doesn't matter who gets defensive rebounds, just so long as you're keeping the opponent from getting offensive rebounds. The difference between the current team and the teams from five years ago, is that those teams made a concerted effort to give the ball to Kidd as quickly as possible after a defensive rebound. Now, they hold onto it, and slowly work their way up the court.

The key to the Nets' rebounding is to continue their dominance on the defensive boards, while doing better on the offensive boards. Enter . . . Josh Boone and Sean Williams. That's what they do. This is just one more reason why Collins-Krstic (in my view) is just notthe mosteffective combination. Krstic is a great shooter, but he isn't a good offensive rebounder. He needs a partner that can get offensive rebounds and score garbage points from underneath. Krstic and Boone--now that might work better. Collins and Magloire might work, also.

GMJ · Sep 17, 2007

True story, Dumpy. I've always been one to say that the analysis of statistics is important, and that blindly looking at numbers is a fallacy. For the sake of argument, if both teams shoot 100%, you can't say that the Nets are poor rebounders.

pegs · Sep 17, 2007

yeah, i guess you're completely right with that one, dumpy. 

i guess i'm pretty guilty of blindly looking at stats at times.

ly_yng · Sep 18, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy)</div><div class='quotemain'>

I haven't had the chance to say this yet on this board--so it is kind of like fresh meat. here we go:

THE NUMBER OF REBOUNDS IS IRRELEVANT.

Why? Because the number of rebounds a team gets is directly related to the number of shots a team takes. The number of shots is affected by shooting percentage, the number of turnovers, and shooting fouls, etc.

The ONLY thing that matters is the number of offensive rebounds a teams gets divided by the number of offensive rebounding opportunities, in relation to the opponent's offensive rebounds divided by the number of their offensive rebounding opportunities.

When you do this calculation, you find out that the Nets are generally a TERRIBLE offensive rebounding team . . . but they typically hold their opponents to one of the lowest offensive rebounding percentages in the league, and that overall they net out to about zero--average. The key on defense is really Jason Collins--he does such a great job boxing out and allowing Kidd and Carter to get the defensive rebounds, that when he is in the game, the Nets are among the best teams at restricting the opponents' offensive rebounds. The problem, though, is that on the offensive boards, it is every man for himself--and Collins just can't jump. 

It doesn't matter who gets defensive rebounds, just so long as you're keeping the opponent from getting offensive rebounds. The difference between the current team and the teams from five years ago, is that those teams made a concerted effort to give the ball to Kidd as quickly as possible after a defensive rebound. Now, they hold onto it, and slowly work their way up the court.

The key to the Nets' rebounding is to continue their dominance on the defensive boards, while doing better on the offensive boards. Enter . . . Josh Boone and Sean Williams. That's what they do. This is just one more reason why Collins-Krstic (in my view) is just not the most effective combination. Krstic is a great shooter, but he isn't a good offensive rebounder. He needs a partner that can get offensive rebounds and score garbage points from underneath. Krstic and Boone--now that might work better. Collins and Magloire might work, also. </div>

Woo! Basketball stats talk! I'm just starting to get really into this, and I may start trying to do some real work in it (maybe even posture myself for a job in a year or so, see if some team is dumb enough to hire me... hehe, we'll see). 

So, as far as that second to last paragraph goes: "The difference between the current team and the teams from five years ago, is that those teams made a concerted effort to give the ball to Kidd as quickly as possible after a defensive rebound. Now, they hold onto it, and slowly work their way up the court." This would seem to imply that our lack of a fast break was more a stylistic choice than one of neccessity. We've always been a good defensive rebounding team (that is, we don't give up many offensive rebounds), but our players simply haven't been as good about pushing the ball, outlet passes, etc.

But we can look at the rebounding rates of individual players. That is, when they were on the court, what percentage of the available rebounds did a player pull down? Here are Kidd's rebounding rates over the past 6 years. Note the difference between Era I and Era II:<pre> Year RbR 2001-02 10.9 2002-03 9.6 2003-04 10.3 2004-05 12.1 2005-06 11.4 2006-07 13.2</pre>



In the K-Mart era, Kidd rebounded about 10% of all available rebounds. That jumped to a bit over 12% in the Vince Carter era. We can also compare Kerry Kittles to Vince Carter, the starting guards for their respective eras:<pre> Year RbR - Kerry Kittles 2001-02 5.9 2002-03 7.4 2003-04 6.8 - Vince Carter 2004-05 9.1 <-when in NJ 2005-06 9.3 2006-07 9.3</pre>



We see that in Era II, Vince Carter grabed more than 9% of available rebounds, as opposed to Kerry Kittles who grabbed under 7%. This time there is a jump of about 2.5% when you weight things by minutes played per season. 

All in all, what we're seeing as a 4.5% shift of the rebounding duties from the frontcourt to the backcourt. Considering that a perfectly average team would grab 50% of all rebounds, that's nearly a fifth of the rebounding responsibilities moving to guards, the players who (ideally) should be running. In other words, the problem would not appear to be the passing skills or awareness of our big men - it's the fact that our guards, who are both above average rebounders, need to pick up the slack for our poor rebounding big men. Guards rebounding keeps them on the wrong side of the floor to push the ball, therefore no fast breaks. 

Now for the silver lining. Jamaal Magloire's RbR stats for the past 6 years: <pre> Year RbR 2001-02 17.0 2002-03 17.2 2003-04 17.4 2004-05 17.3 2005-06 18.8 2006-07 18.0</pre>



For comparison, here are some of the leading RbR seasons of Nets big men over the last 6 years:<pre> Player Year RbR Todd MacCullough 2001-02 14.1 Keith Van Horn 2001-02 13.9 Dikembe Mutumbo 2002-03 17.0 Kenyon Martin 2003-04 16.2 Alonzo Mourning 2004-05 16.7 Scott Padget 2006-07 13.5 <- and he led the team! Josh Boone 2006-07 15.5</pre>



What does this all add up to? Unless Jamaal Magliore regresses, he will easily be the best rebounder of the Jason Kidd era, and will be the first competent rebounder of the Vince Carter era (aside from Booooooone's burst at the end of the season). So it is here that I make the bold prediction that Jamaal Magliore (and hopefully more minutes for Josh) will fire up the rejuvination machine for our fast break game. That is, as soon as they learn how to fire an outlet pass.

EDIT: Duh, totally forgot to reference where I got all the data from: www.basketball-reference.com. The site is absolutely brilliant for stuff like this. 

Heh, that turned out to be quite long. Dumpy, where did you get your team level data for the Nets offensive and defensive rebounding rates?

Dumpy · Sep 18, 2007

that's a nice post, ly. I'll focus on it tonight when I have more time. As for the offensive rebounding rates, I did the calculations myself; it's not too hard. Although admittedly I don;t know how they turned out at the end of last season--I didn't have a chnace to look at it.



as for KMart's rebounding--the key feature that you're ignoring is that KMart consistently gave the ball to Kidd as quickly as possible once he got the rebound, and raced up court in time to finish the fast break. How do you think KMart both started and ended all those fast breaks? Now, though, when Krstic or RJeff or Vince gets a rebound, they hug it for three seconds until all the players head up court, then they start to dribble and jog. It has more to do with decision making after they get the rebound than it does WHO got the rebound, if that makes sense.

ly_yng · Sep 18, 2007

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy)</div><div class='quotemain'>

as for KMart's rebounding--the key feature that you're ignoring is that KMart consistently gave the ball to Kidd as quickly as possible once he got the rebound, and raced up court in time to finish the fast break. How do you think KMart both started and ended all those fast breaks? Now, though, when Krstic or RJeff or Vince gets a rebound, they hug it for three seconds until all the players head up court, then they start to dribble and jog. It has more to do with decision making after they get the rebound than it does WHO got the rebound, if that makes sense.</div>

Googling "fast break statistics" gives me two results, one of which is a bbf thread in which YOU complain about the difficulties in finding a team's rank in fast break statistics. I would agree. Having some data on that would make my life much easier. As it is, all I have is shot clock usage data from the 02-03 season and the 03-04 season, and pace data from all three years. <pre>Year Pace Rank2001-02 91.8 (9th out of 29), League = 90.72002-03 91.6 (11th out of 29), League = 91.02003-04 89.4 (18th out of 29), League = 90.1</pre>



That drop from 02-03 to 03-04 was a drop of 2.2 possesions per 48 minutes. Last year, the standard deviation on Pace was 2.5 pos/48, so I'd guess this was a somewhat signifigant change. Meanwhile, based from shot clock usage data from 82games ( http://www.82games.com/0203NJN3.HTM and http://www.82games.com/0304NJN3.HTM) we see additional evidence that from 02-03 to 03-04, the Nets tended to slow down their offense.<pre>Year Percentage of Shots Taken Within 10 Seconds2002-03 42%2003-04 38%</pre>



About 4% more of the offense, 1 in every 25 shots (so, 3-4 every game) came later in the shot clock. Doesn't mean that these were neccessarily lost fast break opportunities - just means that the offense was a bit slower than in the past. Now, on to rebounding rates. Here's an expanded version of the big-man RbR table I posted before, now with the starting frontcourt from each of those three years: <pre> Player Year RbR Todd MacCullough 2001-02 14.1 Keith Van Horn 2001-02 13.9 Kenyon Martin 2001-02 8.7 Dikembe Mutumbo 2002-03 17.0 Kenyon Martin 2002-03 13.9 Richard Jefferson 2002-03 10.2 Jason Collins 2003-04 10.6 Kenyon Martin 2003-04 16.2 Richard Jefferson 2003-04 8.7</pre><pre> </pre>

Year 1, the primary rebounding duties fell upon MacCullough and Van Horn, letting Martin hang out on the perimeter and run to his heart's content. If you consider 10.0 to be the ideal average of ALL NBA players, 8.7 for a player of Martin's skill set is pretty bad. The next year, with Van Horn and MacCullough gone, Martin was moved into the second rebounding spot, behind Mutumbo. Presuming that the pace/usage statistics above imply that we still ran quite a bit in 02-03, this season would be the best example of Martin often starting and ending the break. In 03-04 however, with no-one decent to help Martin rebound, we see his rate jump as the Nets pace and usage drop away from a fast-break offense. 

Now, the confounding factor here is Lawrence Frank. After the coaching change in the middle of 03-04, it's very likely that Frank preferred to play a slower, more methodical pace than Scott. Without game-by-game data, I'm not sure how to tell whether it was personnel or coaching style that led to Martin's transformation into more of a rebounder.

I certainly think that decision making plays a role in whether the team runs or not. But guys like Kittles, Jefferson and Martin often had the luxury of guarding perimeter players on defense, and then taking off on the shot. That takes confidence that the guys behind them will rebound. We've seen a steady trend over the past 6 years of that confidence fading. The whole point is that Jefferson and Vince (and yes, even Krstic to an extent) shouldn't be rebounding at all - they should be running while the other, slower Nets big men pull down the boards. Luckily, with Boone and Magloire playing 40-50 minutes a game, we might actually see this trend start to reverse.

pegs · Sep 18, 2007

wow, extremely impressive stats, ly_yng. you base alot of the fastbreak possibilities on rebounding, but what about steals and blocked shots? any way the new additions (magloire, williams..?) could help start the fastbreak with their defense?

and is there any way to explain why Jefferson's steals went down from around 1 spg to .6? could that have something to do with injuries, or Frank's style of defense? (you see a similar slight dip in steals with Kidd, as well)

NOMAM · Sep 18, 2007

Interesting stuff Dumpy and ly yng. Last season the Nets at times used Boki at the 4(sometimes interchangeable with Jefferson) to spread the floor. Can you guys find out how they did on the boards when Boki was on the floor in general and also when he was in the game when they were playing small ball with Kidd/Carter/Jefferson/Boki/Collins?

Now that they have Magloire, putting him at center and Boki at the 4, wouldn't this be an interesting lineup to spread the floor in the half-court and a dangerous running game in the open court? They could have Boki and RJ leak out on the break while Kidd, Carter and Magloire pull down the defensive boards. If Kidd or Carter get the rebound they would be ideal for throwing an outlet pass. The only drawback could be how it would affect the Nets on defense and on the boards against a big opponent.

The Nets and rebounding

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