Antawn Jamison’s inaugural Cavs stat line: 26 min, 0/12 FG (blocked 5 times, 2 airballs), 1 AST, 1 STL, 0 TO, 3 PF.
The only upside was 7 boards in 26 minutes, the highest Defensive Rebounding Rate on the team (35.9%) and the second-highest Total Rebounding Rate on the team (15.2%).
Since I can’t recall if we’ve discussed it on this site before, Rebounding Rate is the truest measure of a player’s rebounding ability because it describes the percentage of available rebounds that one guy comes away with. This removes the types of distortions in rebound stats that result from ignoring the pace and FG% of both teams. For instance, a player on a team that puts up a very low number of shots (or misses very few) will look like a worse rebounder in normal rebounding stats than he may actually be, strictly because he doesn’t have the same number of opportunities to rebound as someone who plays on a team who puts up more shots or misses more frequently. This distortion would persist even if we standardized the number of minutes each player played.
To use an example, David Lee is currently averaging 11.1 Total Rebounds (TR) per 36 minutes. Shaq is averaging 10.6 TR per 36 minutes. However, Shaq’s Total Rebound Rate (TRR) of 17.7% is higher than David Lee’s (17.5%), which suggests that if both men were given the same number of rebound opportunities, Shaq at 37 years old would still be a slightly better rebounder than Lee in his prime. But most people think Lee is a better rebounder than Shaq because the Knicks play at a much faster pace than the Cavs (NYK = 8th-fastest in pace factor; Cavs = 27th) and shoot a lower percentage as a team (NYK = 22nd in FG% at 45.2%; Cavs = 2nd at 48.7%), thereby giving Lee many more chances to grab a board.
So, bottom line, at least Jamison rebounded pretty well.
The irony? Highest TRR for tonight’s game belonged to Glitch (20.0%).
This is the point where I remind us all that after the first 2 games of the season, the Shaq trade looked like it was the worst idea since huffing computer cleaner. Clearly, this was a statistical anomaly for Jamison. But to be fair, I’d also say that it highlights the perils of trading for a jump shooter (especially when he’s not even that good a jump shooter).
Cavs play at Orlando Sunday, home vs New Orleans Tuesday, then at Boston Thursday. This is not the week to break in an entirely new rotation, but we’ll see what happens.
-T
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