APBRmetrics

[t50fox]

Hello everyone,

It's great to find that a site like this exists. I've been a lifelong student
of the game and it's history since first watching Chamberlain and
Russell battle it out on my parents black and white TV.
I have always had an interest in dissecting the statistics of the game
and analyzing what makes teams successful. My interest was further
peaked when I read some of Bill James first books on baseball.
As a hobby I have been using Possession statistics and rebounding
percentages to evaluate players for a number of years. I find it
interesting how the media has overvauled some statistics (Chamberlain-Russell Reb stats) and undevalued others (Swen Nater's Reb-stats).
This type of analysis has given me a whole new perspective on team and player performance.
I look forward to learning more from the group and hopefully contribute some insight.

[Mike G]

Hello yourself, and welcome. Usually there's been more going on in here. Hopefully, members aren't preferring to do all their correspondence privately, but simply have other things going on.

Your point about Wilt and Russell's rebounds reminds me of an interview I read with Russell. Now his opinion on such things is pretty well regarded, and when the interviewer asked "why don't players get 20-30 RPG these days?", he had a prime opportunity to enlighten us.

I expected a concise reply like, "Well, there were a lot more rebounds to get back then". But no. He said something about the changing definitions of position, and how centers didn't try to dominate the middle these days.

Has no one ever pointed out to him that forwards and guards and teams all got more rebounds back in the day?

Anyway, rebound rate as a percentage of available rebounds is now in common use (depending on the sites you frequent). There's some debate about scaling a player's rebounds to Opponent Rebounds, or to (Team + Opp) Rebounds.

I think Opp Reb is the thing to scale to. Those are the guys you are rebounding against. Also, I like to see a player rebounding rate (per-36-minutes) adjusted to this factor . That pretty much gives you a per-game-like number, rather than a per-100-rebound number..

[replayhoops]

Excellent point about rebound rates. Another factor is the free-throw shooting rules changes since Russell and Wilt's day. A lot more missed FTA's back then. Probably helped give those guys a couple more rebounds (and easy ones, at that) every game.

Dave

[Mike G]

Are you talking about the old 3-to-make-2? I question whether that would produce more rebounds.

With a 2-shot foul, a missed 2nd-shot becomes a rebound.

With a 3/2 foul, that missed shot just leads to a 3rd shot. Now that 3rd
shot becomes a rebound, if missed.

Each trip to the line can only produce 1 rebound at most, in either case.

And in the 2nd instance, there will be cases where the 3rd shot is made -- thus no rebound. So I'm led to conclude there were Fewer rebounds due to this rule.

But I've actually been wondering lately if there are stats for rebounds off missed FT. What % does the offense rebound? (Less than 5%, I'd think.) These are indeed "gimme" rebounds. How do they affect players' rebound rates?

Consider a 3rd-string center whose main job is to hack Shaq. He might play 10 minutes, foul the big fella 5 times, and get 2 rebounds just from that . Even one "free" rebound in 10 minutes is going to jack up his rate beyond his actual rebounding strength.

I remember Nater's last playing days, as a Laker. I thought he got a lot of rebounds at the FT lane.

[replayhoops]

Just that there were more FTA back then. Prior to 1972-73, a single free throw was shot (excluding offensive fouls and loose ball fouls) even before the fouling team accumulated 5 team fouls.

Teams with few team fouls in a quarter used to have a strategy late in the stanza where they would intentionally foul an opponent, giving up possibly one point with the chance of getting two at the other end of the court. I recall Red Holzman of the Knicks using this strategy quite frequently. Backup guard Mike Riordan was Holzman's designated fouler...so much to the point that Riordan was given the nickname "Give One Mike".

Dave

[kjb]

[Ben]

[Analyze This]

If Chamberlain (25 years old for example) should have played last season what would his scoring average and rebound average be? Is it possible to know that ? Because there are so many factors that you can't measure. For example you can say that back then there were fewer teams and the top centers played each other more. Shaq has Ming and that's it (more doghnut teams nowadays). The refs did not protect him like let us say they did with Jordan. Can you give an estimate of the stats he would produce?

[gabefarkas]

Mike G -- I would disagree that you're only competing against the opposition for rebounds. If you and your teammates are both crashing the boards, and you happen to be standing next to each other when the ball comes your way, a rebound your teammate grabs is one that you didn't.

[Mike G]