Cavs are going to bring Rob Kurz to camp on a non-guaranteed contact. This comes after Joe Smith decided Friday night that there are better music industry connections in Atlanta and agreed to sign with the Hawks.
I analyzed Kurz here in brief already.
On Twitter, Windhorst described Kurz as a “quality shooter.”
Seeing that he shoots 38.9% from the floor…I’m not so sure I agree with that.
In our living room, Tim decided to nickname Kurz “Apocalypse Now” because of the infamous character Kurtz in the classic movie about Vietnam.
Remarkably, last season Apocalypse Now did not have a single dunk. I watched a highlight package earlier today, and I’m going to make a leap and say this is because he doesn’t dunk when - seemingly - he can. He prefers the layup, which is probably part of the reason his FG% around the rim is a not so good 53.6% (Varejao, for example, finishes at 67%).
79% of Kurz’s shots were jump shots. 92% of those shots came off of passes. His eFG% - an aggregate number for field goal percentage that includes 2 + 3 point shots and is adjusted based on the fact that 3 pointers are worth more - was 42.2%. The better you shoot from three, the higher this number is.
Apocalypse Now averaged 10.7 field goal attempts and 3.1 three point attempts per 36 minutes last season.
His +/- numbers are terrible, but he was on a lousy team, so…
Side note: there’s a huge conversation to be had about +/- and aggregate stats like PER and WP48 … we will have that conversation here at some point … I’m just waiting for a good time to do it.
I probably should be writing about the Browns right now if I want people to come to this site anyway.
One final point: ostensibly, the Cavs think Kurz can be a catch-and-shoot 4, much like we saw with Joe Smith last year. And Kurz does shoot 39.5% from behind the arc.
This brings me to Part II of the column. We’ll call it “Apocalypse Now (Redux)” aka “Some Thoughts on Rebounding”.
Kurz’s rebound number - 6.6 per 36 minutes - is a big whatever to me since he played for Golden State, the team with the highest Pace Factor in the league. Pace Factor is a measure of how fast a team plays based on possessions per 48 minutes. More possessions, more shots, more chances to rebound - which is why purely looking at rebound totals is a dicey proposition.
Not to mention the fact that Don Nelson was hilariously fond of running what was essentially a four guard line-up, meaning often there was only one rebounder on the floor at a time (Biedrins, I see you).
Another number to consider then that’s a bit more informative is rebounding percentage. Defensive Rebounding Percentage (DRB%) and Offensive Rebounding Percentage (ORB%) are estimates of the number of available rebounds a player grabs on each side of the ball.
Last season, Kurz’s DRB% was 11.8. His ORB% was 8.1. His Total Rebounding Percentage (TRB%) was 10.0.
In comparison, the league leaders went as follows:
DRB%: Troy Murphy - 31.59
ORB%: Kevin Love - 15.08
TRB%: Da-wight Howard - 21.83
For the Cavs, Ben Wallace had the highest ORB% (12.8), and Z had the highest DRB% (21.6) and TRB% (16.5)
This raises some interesting questions about rebounding, mainly whether or not it’s best to have a dominant rebounder on your team or several very good rebounders, and further more, whether or not guys like Da-wight Howard would rebound at as high of a rate if they were surrounded by better rebounders. And vice versa.
It’s not an easy debate to make a conclusion on, in my opinion. Ideally, Orlando would bring in a fantastic second rebounder so we could attempt to track how Howard’s totals changed, but at the moment I don’t see Otis Smith wanting to make a contribution to our research study.
What I will bring up, however, is team rebounding.
Last season, here were your league leaders, based on rebounding differential:
Portland +5.41
Boston +4.53
Cleveland +3.31
Houston +3.07
Lakers +2.47
Orlando (9th) +1.12
Minnesota (13th) +.79
Indiana (19th) -.39
This would seem to suggest that elite teams rebound well. A no-brainer, really.
It would also imply having one great rebounder isn’t enough to be a great rebounding team.
Finally, it would suggest that the league leading numbers of Murphy, Howard, and Love may not drop as much as I tend to think they would if they were playing next to other top tier rebounders.
I say this because their teams still have room to get more rebounds, hence complimentary rebounders wouldn’t necessarily take rebounds away from the other guys - they might just get the ones that would otherwise be missed entirely.
At any rate, it is an interesting conversation to have.
Okay, so that’s my report on Apocalypse Now and my digression on rebounding. We’ll see if he makes the team.
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