Okay bear with me, I’m seriously asking - and I’m bad at formatting.
The Celtics rebound as a team, with wings and guards chipping in. However, when looking at the top players right now in TRB% - the Cs don’t have anyone in the top 40.
The majority of the top 40 are PFs and Centers, with the exceptions being Ausar Thompson - SF (10), MPJ - SF (32), Jalen Johnson - SF (35), and Scottie Barnes - SG/SF (37.
AL (43) JT (44) Kristaps (51) and Jrue (53) are our top rebounders based on this ranking. No one else is in the top 75.
Part of this is probably because the Celtics produce more long rebounds by shooting a ton of threes - TRB% is a flawed stat after all. However, the league is trending toward shooting a ton of threes as a whole.
28 teams have at least one player above Boston’s in TRB%. Only Brooklyn, Orlando, Washington, and Memphis have their top rebounder rate out as worse than ours in this metric. 12 teams have 2 players in the top 40. 2 teams have 3 (LAL and UTAH).
The reason for this discussion is when an opposing player is elite at rebounding inside, there will be games like this as our team is currently constructed. Our offense is scary good. But rebounding is still an important part of the game. Mark Williams (7 in TRB%) ate us on the offensive glass tonight. And we will face other juggernaut rebounding centers who will put us at a disadvantage. If our offense isn’t clicking, the chance for putbacks goes down drastic.
So what do y’all think? Does this matter? Is it sample size noise? Or is it indicative of something the Celtics will have to weather at times this season? Obviously notable that AL was out tonight. All takes encouraged and thank you.
TRB% is just an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds a player grabbed while he was on the floor.
If we are talking about being concerned about the “team” rebounding, what exactly would be the concern? Typically, the primary concern is giving up too many offensive rebounds and 2nd chance points.
In that sense, Celtics as a team are top 4 in DReb% and top 7 in Opponent 2nd Chance Points.
Generally, those 2 team stats are what people are concerned about when talking about rebounding. Celtics have been good in both regards.
They aren’t great at getting offensive rebounds, i.e. 15th in OReb%, but are top 9 in 2nd Chance Points.
We are generally good, but there are teams that are great at creating 2nd chance shots and everyone will struggle against them in that regard, (i.e. Knicks and Hawks).