No one really wants to read about the snore-inducing Cavs-Nets game that took place at the bizarre time of 1 PM EST earlier today, and I’m already growing tired of bashing JJ “Glitch” Hickson (2-9 from the field today), so let’s talk about something else:
REBOUNDING
I doubt any one who reads this blog also reads The Morning Journal for coverage on the Cavs, but just in case, I thought it was important to fact check the following statement from beat reporter Bob Finnan.
“The Cavs aren’t the rebounding team they were in the past…”
This is a fairly vague assertion since we don’t have any idea what Finnan means by “the past” - last season, two seasons ago, during the Lenny Wilkens era? - but let’s just assume he means over the entire period that Bron has been on the team and the Cavs have made the playoffs.
Cavs Rebounding Percentages
‘08-‘09 Defensive Rebound %: .746 (#9) | Offensive Rebound %: .277 (#14)
‘07-‘08 DRB%: .759 (#2) | ORB%: .304 (#2)
‘06-‘07 DRB%: .758 (#2) | ORB%: .297 (#3)
‘05-‘06: DRB%: .757 (#4) | ORB%: .284 (#10)
These numbers show us that for two of the past four seasons the Cavs have been a dominant rebounding team. Last season they were merely pretty decent. In ‘05-‘06, I’d say they were pretty good. By focusing on rebound rate instead of total rebounds, we avoid falling into the trap of saying that the Cavs were a great rebounding team when really they may have just been padding their rebounding numbers with offensive boards that resulted from an inability to make shots … like when they shot 44.7% in ‘07-‘08, “good” for 24th in the NBA.
So, having said all of that, how are the Cavs rebounding this season?
‘09-‘10 DRB%: .770 (#2) | ORB%: .247 (#25)
In other words, what Finnan should have wrote was that the Cavs are not a good offensive rebounding team this season, but are dominant once again on the defensive glass.
The discrepancy between the two percentages is pretty interesting, as is the revelation that the Cavs were only a pretty decent rebounding team with Ben Wallace. Shaq’s ORB% for his career is 11.8% and Ben’s is 12.4% - so not a huge difference between the two guys over the long term. In comparison, Z’s is 12.4% and Andy’s is 11.4%. Kevin Love led the league last year at 15.8%.
Surprisingly, looking back at ‘06-‘07 Drew Gooden was actually the best offensive rebounder of all the Cavs players getting regular minutes that year, grabbing 13.3% of the available boards (Scot Pollard was technically better - 15.6% - but he only played 109 minutes the entire season).
We’ll have to keep watching this stat as the season progresses. The Cavs are currently ranked 7th offensively, so offensive rebounding doesn’t immediately appear to have a strong correlation with good offense.
