Deep Dive: Who's Stealing Defensive Rebounds?

[kevindewandeler]

Hello everyone,

New to the forum. Wanted to share a recent analysis I did on who's stealing defensive rebounds from their teammates, find it here: https://kdewandeler.wixsite.com/home/si ... e-Rebounds

Welcome questions, comments, jokes, insults, whatever you got. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks,
Kevin

[Crow]

Looks pretty thorough and clearly presented to me. Good job. Thanks for posting.

[Dr Positivity]

Great work

I had Brook Lopez as pegged a strong box out and defer type of rebounder, judging from Giannis ranking high on your rebound steal list I would guess the numbers support that? The Bucks became the best defensive rebounding team in the league when he joined despite a non spectacular history of defensive rebound numbers, although hiring Bud surely helped as well.

The Thunder’s strategy including letting Westbrook get rebounds so he can start fast breaks seems pretty obvious

[Italian Stallion]

I'd like to make one point on this related to Doncic. I watch a ton of Mavs basketball. IMO, he's clearly stealing rebounds from KP and other (as does Westbrook and Harden). However, I think it's possible it's "partially strategic" as opposed to some pure attempt to pad stats. Most teams want to get the ball into the hands of their primary ball handler and playmaker as quickly as possible. So if a ball is on the 40-50 yard line between let's say Porzingis and Doncic. Doncic should get the rebound so the ball is in his hands immediately as opposed to allowing KP to rebound it, look for Doncic, and then pass it to him. You can get the break going faster if it's in Doncic's hands immediately. That said, since each rebound like that gets credited to Doncic instead of KP or others that could have gotten it, imo Doncic's his own stats and metrics look better than the value he is actually adding with his rebounds.

[kevindewandeler]

Looks pretty thorough and clearly presented to me. Good job. Thanks for posting.

Thanks!

[kevindewandeler]

Great work

I had Brook Lopez as pegged a strong box out and defer type of rebounder, judging from Giannis ranking high on your rebound steal list I would guess the numbers support that? The Bucks became the best defensive rebounding team in the league when he joined despite a non spectacular history of defensive rebound numbers, although hiring Bud surely helped as well.

The Thunder’s strategy including letting Westbrook get rebounds so he can start fast breaks seems pretty obvious

Thanks! I agree I had both Brook and Robin in the high deferring players from what I remember. And I agree with you about Westbrook, maybe the Bucks are doing the same with Giannis. Makes sense.

[kevindewandeler]

I'd like to make one point on this related to Doncic. I watch a ton of Mavs basketball. IMO, he's clearly stealing rebounds from KP and other (as does Westbrook and Harden). However, I think it's possible it's "partially strategic" as opposed to some pure attempt to pad stats. Most teams want to get the ball into the hands of their primary ball handler and playmaker as quickly as possible. So if a ball is on the 40-50 yard line between let's say Porzingis and Doncic. Doncic should get the rebound so the ball is in his hands immediately as opposed to allowing KP to rebound it, look for Doncic, and then pass it to him. You can get the break going faster if it's in Doncic's hands immediately. That said, since each rebound like that gets credited to Doncic instead of KP or others that could have gotten it, imo Doncic's his own stats and metrics look better than the value he is actually adding with his rebounds.

Totally agree with you. I have a couple sentences in the blog post about this - I think it's done strategically. Probably best to look at team rebounding success rate/offensive rebounds allowed when evaluating how effective a rebounder is for that reason.