Sacrificing Offensive Rebounding for Defense?

[colts18]

What are your thoughts on teams not crashing the offensive boards so that they can go back on defense?


http://www.vantagesports.com/#story/VQn ... rebounding





From the article, there seems to be a correlation between Offensive Rebounding (and pursuing them) and allowing more fast break points and higher Defensive rating. It vindicates Doc Rivers and Gregg Popovich's philosophy to get back on defense.

[Crow]

But offensive rebound blockouts of defensive rebounders are still good?

[Dr Positivity]

I wonder if it has as much to do with energy as players putting themselves out of position by chasing for the board. Getting an offensive rebound feels like it takes as much effort as anything, by resting a little more on offense, could it allow them to go harder on defense? (I personally think with the exception of freaks like Westbrook and Faried, players are fairly cognizant of conserving and distributing energy during regular season games)

[NateTG]

There's obviously some happy medium. In practice teams are still going for ORBs on free throws, even if that's one of the lowest equity ORB situations in the game, and any time that a big player gets to the rim, sticking around for a potential put back is probably sensible.

I can't make sense of the value proposition without knowing what the scale on the X axis of those correlation charts is - "number of fast break points" is, ostensibly, a counting stat. Does it really make sense to compare that to rate stats like ORB? Similarly, what are the confidence intervals on those correlation constants?

There's the whole post hoc - propter hoc thing too. Is the rebounding and fast break relationship the result of deliberate decisions by the offense and defense, or are they coincident because of, say, team personell? Naively, I would expect bigger players to be better rebounders, but less agile in transition.

[Mike G]

I wonder if it has as much to do with energy ...

If that were the case, wouldn't coaches -- including Pop and Doc -- have hustle guys they put in for a few minutes, specifically to crash the O-boards?

Top offensive rebounders (OReb% > 14) this year, divided between those with more and less than DReb% = 25

Code: Select all

rebounder  tm   OR%  DR%   mpg    crasher  tm   OR%  DR%  mpg
Drummond   Det   18   30   30    Aldemir   Phl   16   24   11
Whiteside  Mia   16   35   23    J Jordan  Brk   16   15    9
D Jordan   LAC   16   32   35    Dedman    Orl   16   24   13
R Evans    Sac   15   29   19    Muscala   Atl   15   16    9
T Chandler Dal   14   27   31    Biyombo   Cha   15   23   17
Asik       NOP   14   30   26    Thompson  Cle   15   19   27
Gobert     Uta   14   27   25    Kanter    OKC   14   20   28
.                                Dorsey    Hou   14   22   11

Any candidates among the group on the right?
Obviously, rebounding isn't the only factor involved in minutes, even for these players. But those who are elite at both ends tend to get more minutes.

[colts18]

I can't make sense of the value proposition without knowing what the scale on the X axis of those correlation charts is - "number of fast break points" is, ostensibly, a counting stat. Does it really make sense to compare that to rate stats like ORB? Similarly, what are the confidence intervals on those correlation constants?

Its Fast Break points per 100 possessions.

[ampersand5]

FWIW when I looked earlier this year, Raps were the top (or close to it) in both O rebounds and transition D. It seemed atleast at the time that they had squared the circle.

[NateTG]

Its Fast Break points per 100 possessions.

Thank you.

So let's assume that teams miss about 50 times per 100 possessions, and that each marginal ORB is worth about a point. So each marginal %ORB is worth 0.5 points per 100 possessions for the offense. Let's also assume that the difference in marginal fast break points come with no opportunity cost to the opponent, so each marginal fast break point allowed is worth -1 points per 100 possessions for the offense.

The chart shows a correlation of 0.2 between %ORB and fast break points allowed per 100, so for each marginal %ORB, the team loses 0.2 points on fast breaks. Maybe I'm misinterpreting something here, but, if anything, it seems like increasing %ORB should have positive net equity since 0.5 > 0.2.

As I said above, we don't know that there's any causal or actionable relationship here, but it seems like the data supports crashing the boards rather than covering for fast breaks.

[colts18]

Its Fast Break points per 100 possessions.

Thank you.

So let's assume that teams miss about 50 times per 100 possessions, and that each marginal ORB is worth about a point. So each marginal %ORB is worth 0.5 points per 100 possessions for the offense. Let's also assume that the difference in marginal fast break points come with no opportunity cost to the opponent, so each marginal fast break point allowed is worth -1 points per 100 possessions for the offense.

The chart shows a correlation of 0.2 between %ORB and fast break points allowed per 100, so for each marginal %ORB, the team loses 0.2 points on fast breaks. Maybe I'm misinterpreting something here, but, if anything, it seems like increasing %ORB should have positive net equity since 0.5 > 0.2.

As I said above, we don't know that there's any causal or actionable relationship here, but it seems like the data supports crashing the boards rather than covering for fast breaks.

The correlation between ORB% and D rating is over 0.3. You would think its the opposite because the big teams that are good on defense but struggle to score usually are the ones to crash the boards (Chicago or Memphis). But the correlation is the opposite way.

[Crow]

Only a small impact, but teams make about 45% of their shots overall, missing 55%. %s might be a little different on shots not preceded by an offensive rebound.