Around the NBA 8.0

[Braggins]

Bismack is the kind of guy a top 5 GM lets walk to competitor for peanuts. Charlotte is better off without such a limited offensive player. Our defensive and rebounding numbers don't lie.

I don't think its fair to give Cho the credit for making such a bold but clearly correct move. I mean Cho was the one who drafted the guy, so he obviously thought he had some potential for some reason. It was the genius of Steve Clifford realizing that he wasn't even as good as Jason Maxiell and would never be nearly the game changer that Al Jefferson is that led to his departure. Cho never would have had the balls to move on from Biz without Cliffords guiding hand and he probably would have wasted all our time waiting til Biz was like 23-24 years old before coming to the obvious realization that he just doesn't have what it takes to cut it in todays NBA. I'm so glad that we just cut our losses and moved onto to guys like Spencer Hawes while we still had the chance. Smart GMs are starting to follow our lead and stocking up on immobile 7 footers who can't rebound, protect the rim, or score efficiently, so we were honestly really lucky to pick up a guy like that while there was still a limited market for him.

[catch20two]

I think it was moreso Cliff's unlikeness to play Biz that forced Cho's hand to let Biz walk. It was more of Cliff's decision than I'd say Cho's. Cho did Biz a favor. I feel the same way about Cliff's indecision to play Lamb whereas I felt like it caused us to a varying degree in the playoffs when Batum and Marv weren't playing up to half of their standards. I felt that same way the year before when CDR was on fire in the playoffs and our team's scoring went almost thru the roof with him on the floor but Cliff kept going to the non#spacing experience of Hendo.

[Eoghan]

We're the best rebounding team of all time without him, broskis. Clifford and Cho's genius should not be questioned. They are the best GM-Coach tandem in the NBA, like peanut butter and jelly, cookies and cream, or DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

[Flip Murray]

We're the best rebounding team of all time without him, broskis. Clifford and Cho's genius should not be questioned. They are the best GM-Coach tandem in the NBA, like peanut butter and jelly, cookies and cream, or DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.

It's only a B+ from me until I get a soda reference

[BatumtheGlue]

Which team will have the better chance to beat GSW? The Spurs or The Thunders?

[Diop]

I like Biz and wish we kept him but I'm not really going to lose sleep about it.

[Braggins]

We are #BizNation. We do not forgive. We do not forget.

[qiantom]

We are not a good defensive rebounding team...It is like a player with good stats but people know he is not that good a player.

We had literally the best DRB% ever. That's like taking someone like Steph and being like "ignore the stats, he's not a good shooter."

There are ways to inflate that stat, like the rebounding schemes. We have one of the worst transition points in the league. The two pretty much cancel out each other, meaning we are really about average. Many teams are better than us in rebounding, but they just choose to be more opportunistic with transition offense.

In a similar way, you can be the lowest turnover team of the league by having players do very little passing and just jack up shots, or just make the safest passes.

[PG13]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/warriors/status/730633017127895040[/tweet]

[bws94]

BB looked great out there tonight. Great energy.

[gamer4Life]

Love how Draymond grabs players in such a way that the refs swallow their whistles. Truly MVP stuff.

[yosemiteben]

Best rebounding team in NBA history. We just dropped the ball against Miami.

Correct. Injuries to Marv, Cody, Kemba, and Batum had a lot to do with that I suspect.

Please make the argument that the team that gave up the least number of O boards ever was actually not a good defensive rebounding team. Odd that that argument is being seriously made IMO.

[yosemiteben]

There are ways to inflate that stat, like the rebounding schemes. We have one of the worst transition points in the league. The two pretty much cancel out each other, meaning we are really about average. Many teams are better than us in rebounding, but they just choose to be more opportunistic with transition offense.

So they are willing to and do give up more offensive rebounds, but they are still a better defensive rebounding team?

The scheme is what makes us factually the best. It doesn't really make sense to say, "They're the best but that's just because they scheme to be the best, so really they're just average even though no one does it better."

They are elite at it at the expense of other parts of the game? Fair argument to be made. Not a good defensive rebounding team? Absurd.

[Braggins]

I think the point is that if we had better individual rebounders we wouldn't have to rely so heavily on scheme or sacrifice as much in other areas in order to achieve the level of rebounding efficiency we do. Our scheme also didn't exactly get the job done once we were in the playoffs against a team with an elite rebounder who was focusing on exploiting our lack of size and individual rebounding.

[yosemiteben]

If you're judging how adept we are at defensive rebounding, all that should matter is how few O boards we allow. Seems like common sense to me.

When I have some time in a bit I'll look up our DRB% by game in the playoffs.

[Braggins]

Here are our the rebounding totals against Miami. Our total is the first number.

Game 1 - 28/42
Game 2 - 39/35
Game 3 - 47/53
Game 4 - 36/46
Game 5 - 41/50
Game 6 - 31/46
Game 7 - 36/58
Total - 258/330

We lost the rebounding battle in all but one game and lost it by an average of over 10 per game. Miami had 72 more in 7 games. Seems like we are vulnerable on the boards against the more physical teams in the league.

[LofJ]

I hope Clifford is realizing now how wrong he was when it came to Biz.

[qiantom]

There are ways to inflate that stat, like the rebounding schemes. We have one of the worst transition points in the league. The two pretty much cancel out each other, meaning we are really about average. Many teams are better than us in rebounding, but they just choose to be more opportunistic with transition offense.

So they are willing to and do give up more offensive rebounds, but they are still a better defensive rebounding team?

The scheme is what makes us factually the best. It doesn't really make sense to say, "They're the best but that's just because they scheme to be the best, so really they're just average even though no one does it better."

They are elite at it at the expense of other parts of the game? Fair argument to be made. Not a good defensive rebounding team? Absurd.

Maybe I should have used a different word like strategy. Scheme makes it sound profound but it really boils down to simply having all five guys back and sacrificing fastbreak opportunities. To put it another way, some other teams could easily employ the same strategy and beat our DRR% stat. They choose not to because it does not help them win more games so it is deemed an inferior strategy, at least for them.

So I think you agree that the defensive rebounding came at the expense of other parts of the game, yet you just want to claim that we are a good defensive rebounding team because we have a good DRR%? It is only meaningful to be a good defensive rebounding team if it helps you win, right? The way you look at it in a standalone fashion does not correlate to winning and is not very meaningful I am afraid. It is important to look at the context and see how that stat is achieved.

Giving up fewest points per game does not necessarily mean your defense is superior. It may be that you play at an extremely slow pace. Having the lowest TO may not mean you take care of the ball well. It may be that you just refuse to pass. I can go on and on. Making a claim based on one stat is simply dangerous.

[yosemiteben]

Raw rebounding totals against MIA don't tell the whole story. Since we're talking about defensive rebounding, we should be looking at DRB%.

Our season average was 79% DRB. Looks like in this series we went:

Game 1 - 60% (destroyed in pretty much every facet in that game)
Game 2 - 89% (we owned the D glass)
Game 3 - 76% (a bit below our average, not terrible)
Game 4 - 75% (a bit below our average, not terrible)
Game 5 - 86% (owned the D glass again)
Game 6 - 70% (poor performance)
Game 7 - 77% (right around our average)

We had two games where we were well below our average, two games where we dominated the glass, and three games where we were slightly below our average. I still think our performance on the boards is more attributable to a hobbled Marv, Zeller, and Batum than it is to being dominated by an elite rebounder on MIA. In the games where we were beat up on the boards (Game 1 and 6), Whiteside only accounted for 5 of MIA's total of 25 O boards.

In the two games where Whiteside played, TOR's DRB% was 75.7%. In our seven game series against MIA, our DRB% was 75.9%.

[qiantom]

I do not think it was Whiteside alone. Rather it was everyone from MIA crashing the offensive boards because they know we do not leak out, and they are bigger than us at a lot of positions. They just exploited our conservative strategy and some matchups.