lilfishi22 wrote:Ghost of Kleine wrote:Spoiler:
I won't spend a ton of time on this since TT is not available but the premise is that the Suns have an offensive rebounding issue and you could extend that to say our total rebounding could improve too. Thompson is very good at one thing but hasn't been good enough to get extended minutes on the floor. Playing Thompson 5-10mpg off the bench to grab 2-3 offensive rebounds isn't really going to solve our offensive rebounding problem because it's a game long issue. And the simple fact that we have Biyombo, who's a marginally worse offensive rebounder than Thompson makes the suggestion of Thompson an even more pointless one.
It would be like asking Payton to solve a playmaking issue by playing him 10mpg...he can be good at making plays but you're not really moving the needle there when the team would still have an issue in the 38 other minutes of the game and you give up shooting. I'm not opposed to dropping Payton and adding someone like the guys you've mentioned but I'm not under the impression that any of them would solve our issues.
The real change would come in the way a refocus of our defensive scheme. The Suns are one of the best transition teams in the league, offensively and defensively. We're ranked #2 on offensive transition PPP and and #3 on defensive transition PPP. If we focus more on gang rebounding on the offensive end, have Ayton and others box out for other guys to rebound, we'll secure more offensive boards. It's that simple. But we'll very likely give up more transition points. The Suns are a relatively small team, we're not especially physical and primarily playing Cam and Crowder at the 4 because we have chosen to prioritise overall team defense and shooting over trying to grab a ton of offensive rebounds. We play the game that maximises the strengths of our personnel. And while we're not good on the offensive boards (#22 OREB%), we're #2 in FG%, #5 in 3P%, #3 in ORTG, #3 in DRTG, #1 in net rating, #7 in AST%, #13 in REB%. We can't be good at EVERYTHING
We have an offensive rebounding issue but it won't be solved by a 9th,10th, 11th man. And the question remains, if you play Thompson those minutes, who are you NOT playing instead? Cam? Crowder? McGee? Craig? And what are you giving up to play Thompson?
If a guy can't shoot, just because he is good at one thing we may need, it's not going to make our team better because he will hurt us in other areas. Do you take time from Cam to play at PF? Play instead of Ayton?
Either makes us worse.
I didn't read all these posts outside of a few sentences but I see it's a debate on a guy like Tristan Thompson helping us. He wouldn't help us (I imagine I agree with you fish) . We have far better players he would take minutes from. No teams get THAT many more offensive rebounds than us on average though.
Memphis gets by far the most....but most of the top teams in OREB are not great teams...probably because it's teams that miss a lot of shots.
Boston is the next really good team on the rankings, at 10th, with 10.7 per game. We are at 9.7, ahead of GS, both LA teams, DAL, DEN, PHI and CHI. The Knicks are actually 5th so that is one of their big strengths.
For opponent OREBs, the worst team allows 12 per game (Clips) and the best team allows 9.1 (Portland) with 2nd best 9.4. We allow 10.6....pretty much the middle...so it's really not THAT bad of weakness overall for the season.