Offensive rebounding is back in a big way

[Im Still Ballin]

I was looking at some old Dwight Howard threads, as I was formulating a response to a RealGM thread about him on page one. I came across a post I didn't agree with then and certainly don't now:

No rational team in the modern era focuses on offensive rebounding. That's bad basketball and we've known for at least 2 decades it gives up more points than it generates.

It seemed as though there was a period of time in the 2010s where transition defense and smaller lineups were prioritized over offensive rebounding and size. But in the '20s, we've begun to see a return to traditionally valued second chance points. We've seen Taylor Jenkins' Memphis (2021-22) and Tom Thibodeau's Knicks (2022-23 and 2023-24) utilize offensive rebounding to create elite offenses despite below-average eFG%:

MEM 2021-22: 5th ORtg; +2.6 rORtg [23rd eFG%, 4th TOV%, 1st ORB%, 23rd FT/FGA]

NYK 2022-23: 3rd ORtg; +3 rORtg [20th eFG%, 5th TOV%, 2nd ORB%, 11th FT/FGA]
NYK 2023-24: 7th ORtg; +2.9 rORtg [16th eFG%, 15th TOV%, 1st ORB%, 15th FT/FGA]
NYK PLAYOFFS 2023-24: 2nd ORtg; +5.1 rORtg [10th/16 eFG%, 2nd/16 TOV%, 1st/16 ORB%, 5th/16 FT/FGA]

Both Memphis and New York utilize Aaron Fearne-style Tagging Up tactics to maximize offensive rebounding chances without sacrificing transition defense.

The perspective of offensive rebounding not being worth the tradeoff of giving up transition baskets is outdated. I came across two articles supporting this, one from 2018 and the other from 2023:

https://nateduncannba.com/podcast-ep...ving-tradeoff/

As offensive rebounding has gotten worse than ever, that reduction would in theory correlate with better transition defense. Yet transition frequency off misses has increased in the last two years. While there was once a clear correlation between a team’s OREB% and how often their opponents ran off defensive rebounds, that correlation has dropped significantly over the last 3 years.



The average correlation between OREB% and opponents running off defensive rebounds over the last 3 seasons has been 0.14. The previous 7 seasons had an average correlation of 0.44. This difference indicates that offensive rebounding hasn’t been nearly as harmful to teams’ transition defense as it has been in the past, or perhaps not offensive rebounding is not the transition prophylactic it used to be.

In 2013, Jenna Wiens et al. presented a fantastic paper on the tradeoffs between crashing the glass and getting back on defense at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics conference. Wiens and company concluded that in a generalized context, teams should crash the glass more often. A similar analysis today might illuminate how the tradeoffs of offensive rebounding have changed in the new NBA environment. Such a study with access to spatial tracking data is needed to draw firmer conclusions, but preliminary indications are that perhaps crashing the offensive boards should come back in style.

https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/2536613

As for the long-held conventional wisdom about sacrificing transition defense in the bargain, Williams feels those concerns have largely proven unfounded.

"We haven't seen it hurt us like I thought it would," he said. "As a matter of fact, we feel like at times it helps us. When teams know you're sending two or three guys, sometimes four, they’re less apt to run. That’s what they do in Toronto, where they send like eight guys. They check a few guys in the game illegally to go get a board sometimes. You see so many red jerseys in the paint."

Cleaning the Glass tracks "points added per possession" on transition plays following live-ball rebounds, which essentially quantifies how many more points a team scores or allows via those possessions than they would've been expected to if those had been half-court possessions instead. The Suns have been below average when it comes to defending those plays, but the drop-off from the last two seasons - when they were largely content to punt the offensive glass - has been pretty negligible. In fact, Williams' broader point that crashing the offensive glass can actually be a deterrent to opponents looking to get out and run isn't entirely off base.

Last season's Raptors were indeed one of the best teams in the league at limiting transition chances, and while they've been less effective in that capacity this season, they still aren't exactly getting burned for their crash-happy ways. The Bucks are currently achieving the same balance the Raptors did last season, and the Grizzlies have done it for two years running. If you look at the league as a whole, you see basically zero correlation between grabbing offensive rebounds and surrendering transition points after failing to come up with one:



That's not to say there isn't a threshold for crashing, beyond which the balance would get tilted out of whack. But for now, teams hunting offensive boards are reaping the rewards without many drawbacks. In a copycat league, will we see this trend continue to snowball in 2023 and beyond?

As Williams explained: "When you see somebody else doing something and you have a coach that you trust to give you the information and the video, and you feel it, why not go with it?"

It's fascinating how the game and the "meta-strategy" evolves. What was once valuable became outdated then now it's back again. Rebounding-focused teams and lineups still work. Mid-range and post-up lineups and offenses still work. Spacing and shooting are both essential and overrated.

I think it's important we avoid catch-all statements and generalizations when it comes to basketball strategy, scheme, and personnel. The game is way more complex than how fans talk about it online. Many nuances and minutiae are missed because simplifying things makes it easier to understand for fans.

That RealGM poster is probably the worst culprit when it comes to that behavior. The teams of the past would do way better than many of you think they would.

[Im Still Ballin]

Here's an article from 2016 about how transition defense was all the rage and offensive rebounding had gone out of fashion:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...ing-room-floor

Brett Brown still remembers the mantra Gregg Popovich and his staff in San Antonio recited to warn perimeter players against chasing offensive rebounds.

"We don't care if you get an offensive rebound in your entire life," Brown says, laughing. "And we'd say it to them exactly like that."

Popovich was among the first in a wave of coaches to order four or even all five players to run back on defense the moment a shot went up. Retreating prevents fast-break points and forces opposing offenses to work against both a set defense and the dwindling shot clock. That is the first step in quieting explosive opponents, and any tactic that ran counter to it -- such as having too many guys crash the offensive glass -- would be used only in tiny doses. It is almost orthodoxy in most of the NBA today: Offensive rebounding doesn't matter, especially because it threatens the integrity of your defense.

"San Antonio set the model," says Terry Stotts, the Blazers' coach. "Offensive rebounding has never been a priority for us."

Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, Steve Clifford, Erik Spoelstra and Rick Carlisle are among the coaching giants who have (mostly) gone down the Pop path.

"Right now, everything is tilted toward transition defense," Brown says. "We are all sheep."

Players feel the shift too. "Years ago, every coach was looking for offensive rebounds," says Luis Scola, Toronto's starting power forward. "And now it's so different, because coaches don't want to give up transition points. That's why players stopped doing it."

The effect has crescendoed this season. Leaguewide, offenses have rebounded just 23.8 percent of misses, on pace to be the lowest overall mark in NBA history. On the flip side, the Spurs, Hornets and Cavs all have a chance to set the all-time record in defensive rebounding rate -- a record Charlotte set just last season. "If you study the numbers," Clifford says, "you find that offensive rebounding just isn't important in winning big."

[Full Court]

Interesting thread.

A good team will make the opposition work for everything, including defensive rebounds.

If you look at this past season, most of the teams considered good defensively have at least decent offensive rounding numbers. The top offensive rebounding team was the Knicks. Their defense certainly didn't seem to suffer from it.

[Round Mound]

Barkley, Rodman, Dwight, Westbrook. Today?

[dankok8]

Good thread. Offensive rebounding is overlooked.

[StrongLurk]

It is still very important, but in my opinion offensive rebounding was always more important is slower paced, low possession offense. Rodman on the Bulls was a great example. 10 Offensive RBs in a 80 possession game is far more impactful than 10 O-RBs in a 110 possession game.

[BarberSchool]

What is less obviously quantifiable, about many of the league’s best offensive rebounders, is the degree to which they can set the perfectly anticipatory gortat screen and other related types of screens, to greatly enhance their primary ball handling slashers ability to :

1. Score super efficiently in the paint

2. Avoid injury while scoring efficiently in the paint.

3. Avoid turnovers while slashing at full speed

4. Clean up missed acrobatic attempts with their elite offensive rebounding to make all possessions involving what was said above into incredibly efficient possessions.

Gortat in Washington
Adams in OKC & Memphis
Etc

These archetypes are the basketball equivalent of having a huge dominant offensive line in the NFL. They’re an absolute bargain, and in coming years, even more advanced stats will showcase this clearly. These players are far far far more valuable than simply extra posesssions and extra shot attempts.

[90sgoat]

As someone who watched 5 years of the Dwight Powell at center Dallas Mavericks, I could definitely tell NBA coaches to pay attentiom, because Mavs were getting murdered on the boards and not even the best player in the world could win with that. As soon as Mavs got a rebounder they went to the finals.

Teams playing small should not be countered by going small, but by going as big as you can and crash the boards. It seems that teams have finally come around to this. Jokic, Embiid, etc. They've turned it around.

[tontoz]

The top 5 teams in offensive rebounding this past season were:

NY
Utah
Portland
GS
Atlanta

Not exactly a murderers row.

OKC ranked 27th and they were the top seed in the West. The two teams in the finals ranked 12th and 24th in offensive rebounding.

Yawn

[RRR3]

The top 5 teams in offensive rebounding this past season were:

NY
Utah
Portland
GS
Atlanta

Not exactly a murderers row.

OKC ranked 27th and they were the top seed in the West. The two teams in the finals ranked 12th and 24th in offensive rebounding.

Yawn

I'm Still Contrarian at it again