Who is going to rebound now?

[Pacergeek]

After trading Troy Murphy, most of us rejoiced and celebrated Troy's departure. However, it is now clear that with Troy leaving, we have a huge weakness that has not been adressed. Rebounding. It is impossible to win without having a guy that can go up and get rebounds.

Say what you want about Troy, but he got rebounds. Although I do approve the acquisition of Collision, I am disappointed that Bird ignored that fact that we gave up our best rebounder, and got nothing back to supplement the lost rebounding.

[Trophy]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Roy. He's been a good rebounder and now will need to take on the full responsibilty and pull down all or most of the team's rebounds.

When Jeff is in, he's able to get offensive rebounds.

[Really?]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Rebound by committee, lol

[Putnam]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Troy got lots of rebounds for two reasons:

1. He was good at it, and
2. The game plan called for him to take the rebounds.


The Pacers do not need another guy to take all 737 rebounds that Troy collected. They need to revise the game plan so that contesting defensive rebounds is more of a team objective.

Foster rebounded last year at a higher rate than Murphy, so more Foster minutes will mean more rebounds from him. Hibbert, Hansbrough and McRoberts were all close to the same rebounding rate as Murphy. They are capable of making up the difference with more minutes and a greater emphasis on rebounding.

Roy. He's been a good rebounder and now will be to take on the full responsibilty of being the big man on the team and pull down all or most of the team's rebounds.

EDIT: Trophy, surely you don't mean Roy is going to get "all" the Pacers rebounds. That doesn't happen. Even a phenomenon like Dwight Howard collected less than 1/3rd of his team's rebounds.

And remember this: for all the over-the-top language about "wiping the glass," a very large share of NBA rebounds are picked up off the floor by guards. Rajon Rondo, at 6'1", outrebounded his 6'10" teammate Rasheed Wallace last season.

[Speed]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

I know Obrien works on this and fundamentals in general, but blocking out.

Posey does it, religiously, Jeff does it almost all the time. Others do sporadically, some never.

At the NBA level it baffles me that this basic concept often doesn't apply. It's still basketball, even at the highest level.

I remember JO being termed as a guy who really wasn't a block out type of rebounder? Really? How is it better to not be between your guy and the basket in any scenario at any level of basketball?

Plus if your an agressive go-after-the-ball type rebounder, boxing out doesn't preclude you doing this, in fact it helps, since you already have position on one of the offensive players.

So, ya maybe you don't have a dominant board cleaner, but if five guys box out your rebounding percentage will go up.

I do feel like that JMac and Hansbrough have the tools to get up to 10 boards a game, though.

Scheme wise you could adjust, but it's at the detriment of running in transition or can be. You can send 5 guys to the basket to rebound, but then you have 96 feet for ALL 5 guys to beat their man down the court. This is what I think Obriens answer is to this and I get it, but to me it's robbing peter to pay paul.

I want all 5 guys boxing out, everytime. Let me know if you see anyone, next game, for either team boxing out, outside of 10 feet of the basket. It just doesn't happen in the NBA, sad really.

I sound like an old man yelling at youngsters to turn down their music, but I honestly believe this would be a huge step in the right direction.

I don't think it's by accident that Utah is a great rebounding team and I also don't think it's because they have a bunch of dominant rebounding players. Sloan's old school, it's what he values.

[Pacerized]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Since Murphy's 33 minutes will end up going to several players it has to be a collective effort. McBob, Tyler, Roy, and Jeff should get most of those minutes. If Jeff can play in 72 games like Murphy did last year he can rebound at that rate for the minutes he plays. Simply put if Jeff could play all of Murphy's 2344 minutes I don't think we'd miss anything, but that can't happen. At best we might hope he can cover half of the loss since he won't play that much. The question is can the combination of Roy, Mcbob, and Tyler make up for the rest? So far in the off season they haven't. This should really test the rebound stealing theory.

[Pacergeek]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Maybe I am just freaking out, but the pre-season rebounding numbers seem really poor, and I think that Pacer fans will miss Murphy a lot more than we thought.

[vnzla81]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

I think the question should be, who is going to steal the rebounds now?

[graphic-er]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

We were not a great rebounding team last year either, great rebounding teams are able to get a good amount off Offensive rebounds. We were terrible at that last year and will be terrible at it this year, because the JOB mantra is shoot early and shoot often, and get back on D, which means no player is in position 90% of the time to pull down an Offensive rebound.

I feel pretty comfortable that McBob and Tyler will be able to replace Murphy's defensive rebounds.

Heck I seen George steal a rebound from Foster already.

[BillS]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

So, does this perhaps mean that Murphy's rebounds weren't all easy rebounds that anyone on the team either could have gotten or would have gotten if he didn't blatently steal them?

You can't have it both ways, either Murphy's rebounds were valuable and we need to be concerned that they aren't being replaced, or they were useless and there's nothing to worry about.

[MLB007]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

1) Roy will be better, he's much quicker and more explosive.
2) Jeff is back, he'll make up at least 1/2 of them, even in limited minutes
3) Tyler and Josh will both put up better numbers with more minutes.
4) Rest has to be 'by committee"

Bottom line, I expect we'll be at least as good, but probably better by the end of the season. Going to take some time and emphasis though.

[Peck]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Sadly I will have to admit that Troy Murphy has actually managed to shake my entire rebounding is king theory to the very core.

I now actaully look at rebounding figures and no longer care. A double double almost means nothing to me now.

My entire life of watching basketball I have viewed getting 10 rebounds a game as a monumental achievement that usually is only done by great rebounders.

That is all gone now.

[BillS]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

Sadly I will have to admit that Troy Murphy has actually managed to shake my entire rebounding is king theory to the very core.

I now actaully look at rebounding figures and no longer care. A double double almost means nothing to me now.

My entire life of watching basketball I have viewed getting 10 rebounds a game as a monumental achievement that usually is only done by great rebounders.

That is all gone now.

Why? Basketball is a game of probabilities, not absolutes.

Even IF you think Murphy's rebounds were all fake, that doesn't mean everyone else who gets double-digit rebounds is some kind of pretender.

Then again, the answer could be that not all of Murphy's rebounds were fake. I know that also would shock you to the core, but it is more likely than the alternative idea that rebounds don't matter and the only people who get lots of rebounds are pretending.

[OakMoses]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

You can't have it both ways, either Murphy's rebounds were valuable and we need to be concerned that they aren't being replaced, or they were useless and there's nothing to worry about.

I choose C: We were a bad rebounding team with Troy, now we are a bad rebounding team without Troy.

[BillS]

Re: Who is going to rebound now?

I choose C: We were a bad rebounding team with Troy, now we are a bad rebounding team without Troy.

Makes no sense. If we are getting fewer rebounds on an absolute level without Troy, and if Troy's numbers were all because he stole rebounds or he got meaningless ones, then either our absolute numbers would stay the same (because the guys he stole from would get the rebounds) or the change in rebounds wouldn't matter.