Are these Celtics the worst offensive rebounding team in history?

[BballTim]

The problem with offensive rebounding stats is that the sample size is always so small. I mean, the difference between the top and the bottom team in offensive rebounding (Chicago and us, respectively), is 6. The difference between 1st and 20th is 3.

There are just so few offensive rebound opportunities in any basketball game, that a difference of one or two boards makes a huge impact on the percentage/efficiency numbers, that may be out of proportion to its actual impact on the game.

  The way you have to look at it is each offensive rebound is basically an extra possession, and teams average close to a point per possession. The Knicks are 22nd in offense, another three offensive rebounds and they might be 8th or so in offense.

No, an ORB is not an 'extra possession'.  It is simply a continuation of the current possession.

  Obviously this is true in terms of points per possession measurements. But my point was that it gives you another crack at scoring on your possession. Getting more offensive rebounds will increase your scoring efficiency.

This gets to the fundamental game-value difference between offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds.  A DRB is 100% the stoppage of a current possession with zero points.  An ORB is just a continued _chance_ to score on the current possession.

  This is fairly nebulous. When you get an offensive rebound you prevent the opponent from getting a defensive rebound from that shot. You're preventing them from realizing that game-value, which should have equal value for you.

Offensive rebounds are great when you get them.  But their importance to winning the game is overrated by many fans.   The main stat that ORBs correlates with is missed shots.   

Every year, if you look at the rankings for which teams grab a lot of ORBs versus those who don't it is almost a reverse of winning percentage.  Yes there are exceptions.  Some years you do have an a few good teams (like this year's Bulls) that happen to also grab a lot of ORBs.  But more often than not, the majority of top-10 ORB% teams have mediocre-to-poor records.  Conversely, the majority of the bottom-10 ORB% teams each year tend to have winning records.

Doc's strategy is not too different than what most winning Celtic teams have used in the past: 

1) Shoot for a high FG%.
2) Hold your opponent to a low FG%.
3) Rebound on defense.

If you can shoot above ~47% and hold your opponent to below ~43%, and you grab _defensive_ rebounds at above 70%, then you are almost always better off getting back on defense the moment you take your shot, rather than trying to crash the boards on offense.

The best teams at grabbing offensive rebounds only grab them about 30% of the time.  And that is the _best_ at it.  Most of the time teams only get the ORB about 25% of the time.  Crashing the boards also puts you behind on defense, potentially exposing yourself to easy fast-break points.

If you instead get back on transition D, prevent easy layups and hold your opponent to a low FG%, making them miss at least ~57% of their first shots, and grab the defensive board at least 70%, then your chance of getting the ball back before they score is better than ~40%.

Note - the real numbers are more in favor of that than the conservative ones I am using here.

So, from the moment the ball leaves your hand on the shot, you have a much higher chance of getting the ball back before they score if you get back on transition D instead of 'crashing the boards'.

Obviously, if a rebound is there to be grabbed, you should go for it.  This math is all about the general strategy, not saying you shouldn't try to grab offensive rebounds when they are there to be grabbed.

And obviously, if you are behind in the closing seconds and need to score on a possession quickly, you need to crash the boards because there may not be enough clock to execute the above strategy.

But the vast majority of the time, transition D should be a much higher priority than crashing the offensive boards.

  This is all probably true but it doesn't take away from the point that I was making, that an extra 3-4 }possessions" has a sizable impact on your offensive rating.

[snively]

It's nowhere close to a small sample size.  This is not an individual game stat.  It's an entire season.  Actually, it's multiple entire seasons.  This is our 2nd consecutive season of being historically awful on the offensive glass.  We haven't fielded a top 10 offense since our ORB% fell off the face of the earth post-Powe.

You are missing my point. ORB% is a volatile stat, because within a game there are so few opportunities. The league average is somewhere around 10 offensive rebounds per game. That means a fluctuation of one rebound in a game is a fluctuation of 10% for that game's ORB%. That's a LOT of variability, which is why Hollinger and other sports statisticians almost never bring it up as a stat.

Also, for the record, look at the last few champions, and how they ranked in the league for offensive boards per game:

2011 Dallas Mavericks - 28th in league
2010 Los Angeles Lakers - tied for 3rd in league
2009 Los Angeles Lakers - 3rd in league
2008 Boston Celtics - tied for 23rd in league
2007 San Antonio Spurs - 27th in league
2006 Miami Heat - tied for 20th in league
2005 San Antonio Spurs - 15th in league
2004 Detroit Pistons - 12th in league
2003 San Antonio Spurs - tied for 20th in league

Need I go on? For further comparison, the best ORB team in the league those seasons, and their records:

2011 - Minnesota Timbersolves (17-65 .... yeah)
2010 - Memphis Grizzlies (40-42, missed playoffs)
2009- Portland TrailBlazers (54-28, lost to Houston in first round)
2008- Cleveland Cavaliers (45-37, lost to Boston in second round)
2007- Cleveland Cavaliers (50-32, lost to Spurs in Finals)
2006- Utah Jazz (41-41, missed playoffs)
2005- Washington Wizards (45-37, lost to Miami in second round)
2004- Dallas Mavericks (52-30, lost to Sacramento in first round)
2003- Golden State Warriors (38-44, missed playoffs)

To start off, game-to-game volatility does not invalidate seasons' worth of data.  And ORB% is not some flighty number that doesn't indicate anything.  Look at the consistency of the C's ORB% in the past few years.  It's not an anomaly: we've been a consistently terrible offensive rebounding team and we're on pace to be the worst in history this year.  Our struggles on the glass are clearly reflected in our offensive rating as well, as we've held up relatively well in every category but ORB% (since the champ season) yet our offensive rating has gone into the tank.

If you're going to dismiss data showing 10% fluctuations from game to game, you're going to have dismiss most of the box score! 

And you switched from ORB% to o-rebs per game in the middle of your post.  The per game numbers aren't reliable as the noise of FG% and pace is too loud.   

ORB% isn't the key to a championship, but it's a vital part of offense.  If you are historically terrible at it, it's going to weigh down your offense, which in turn is going to make it much harder for you to contend.

[snively]

Offensive rebounds are great when you get them.  But their importance to winning the game is overrated by many fans.   The main stat that ORBs correlates with is missed shots.   

Every year, if you look at the rankings for which teams grab a lot of ORBs versus those who don't it is almost a reverse of winning percentage.  Yes there are exceptions.  Some years you do have an a few good teams (like this year's Bulls) that happen to also grab a lot of ORBs.  But more often than not, the majority of top-10 ORB% teams have mediocre-to-poor records.  Conversely, the majority of the bottom-10 ORB% teams each year tend to have winning records.

Doc's strategy is not too different than what most winning Celtic teams have used in the past: 

1) Shoot for a high FG%.
2) Hold your opponent to a low FG%.
3) Rebound on defense.

If you can shoot above ~47% and hold your opponent to below ~43%, and you grab _defensive_ rebounds at above 70%, then you are almost always better off getting back on defense the moment you take your shot, rather than trying to crash the boards on offense.

The best teams at grabbing offensive rebounds only grab them about 30% of the time.  And that is the _best_ at it.  Most of the time teams only get the ORB about 25% of the time.  Crashing the boards also puts you behind on defense, potentially exposing yourself to easy fast-break points.

If you instead get back on transition D, prevent easy layups and hold your opponent to a low FG%, making them miss at least ~57% of their first shots, and grab the defensive board at least 70%, then your chance of getting the ball back before they score is better than ~40%.

Note - the real numbers are more in favor of that than the conservative ones I am using here.

So, from the moment the ball leaves your hand on the shot, you have a much higher chance of getting the ball back before they score if you get back on transition D instead of 'crashing the boards'.

Obviously, if a rebound is there to be grabbed, you should go for it.  This math is all about the general strategy, not saying you shouldn't try to grab offensive rebounds when they are there to be grabbed.

And obviously, if you are behind in the closing seconds and need to score on a possession quickly, you need to crash the boards because there may not be enough clock to execute the above strategy.

But the vast majority of the time, transition D should be a much higher priority than crashing the offensive boards.

Our defense was just as good when we were an average ORB% team in 07/08 and a good one in 08/09.  Leading the league in ORB% hasn't stopped the Bulls from fielding an elite defense.  Rather, our offense has completely fallen apart since our ORB% fell to the league bottom.

I'm not claiming that ORB% is the holy grail.  It's just that our struggles there have largely been the source of our offensive woes since the 08/09 season. 

And I'm not really buying this idea that our ORB% is a result of coaching strategy.  It has much more to do with personnel.

[RyNye]

To start off, game-to-game volatility does not invalidate seasons' worth of data.  And ORB% is not some flighty number that doesn't indicate anything.  Look at the consistency of the C's ORB% in the past few years.  It's not an anomaly: we've been a consistently terrible offensive rebounding team and we're on pace to be the worst in history this year.  Our struggles on the glass are clearly reflected in our offensive rating as well, as we've held up relatively well in every category but ORB% (since the champ season) yet our offensive rating has gone into the tank.

Once again, you completely miss my point. Low ORB% =/= bad offense, and high ORB% =/= good offense.

If you're going to dismiss data showing 10% fluctuations from game to game, you're going to have dismiss most of the box score! 

No. Defensive rebounds and FG have much higher in-game sample sizes than offensive rebounds. Further more, offensive rebounds are tied directly into missed shots, which means things get murky when you try to tie it into good offense. Which was the entire point of my post; terrible teams like Minnesota have good offensive rebounding rates, because they are bricking lots of shots.

How about this little snippet? The Celtics have consistently been at the very top of the league for FG% and 3P% these past few years. Our points per game is low, because we focus on slow-paced defensive slugfests, but our efficiency metrics and TS% are all elite (top 10 or top 5). By definition, this lowers the opportunity for offensive rebounds.

And you switched from ORB% to o-rebs per game in the middle of your post.

That's because the ESPN stats page refuses to let you sort teams by ORB%, and I'm sure as hell not going to do it by hand. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between ORB% and ORB/game, and the latter is far more frequently used by analysts to rank teams than ORB% ANYWAY, so you can't just throw out my post because of this.

The per game numbers aren't reliable as the noise of FG% and pace is too loud. 

The noise affects ORB% just as much as per-game. All ORB% is a proportion tied to the per game numbers. These aren't radically different stats. For example, if you have 7 offensive rebound opportunities in a game, and get 2 of them, versus if you had 5 opportunities in a game and make 2 of them. Per game and percentage are both incredible volatile when you are talking about such small numbers. Why do you think nobody cares about steal percentage or block percentage?

ORB% isn't the key to a championship, but it's a vital part of offense.

Then why are good offensive teams consistently not highly ranked at ORB%? The recent Lakers teams were, but thing about their style of play in those championship seasons. Kobe is no longer an efficient scorer, he is a volume scorer, which means lots of opportunities for Pau to clean-up. Same situation for Shaq with D-Wade and Lebron. All of which is reflected in the numbers.

If you are historically terrible at it, it's going to weigh down your offense, which in turn is going to make it much harder for you to contend.

Yet the stats, and recent NBA history, show the EXACT OPPOSITE.

Look at 2010. The Celtics were 4th in FG% that year, and almost dead last in ORB%. The Lakers were 3rd in ORB%, and below the league average in FG% (18th).

In 2008, both the Celtics and the Lakers were top 5 FG%, and bottom 10 ORB%.

This trend holds true for other contenders. Good offensive rebound and good offense are not synonymous, and in fact often is not.

[the_Bird]

That's because the ESPN stats page refuses to let you sort teams by ORB%, and I'm sure as hell not going to do it by hand.

You can sort by ORR right here, team stats going back to '06-'07.

http://hoopdata.com/teamadvancedstats.aspx

[snively]

To start off, game-to-game volatility does not invalidate seasons' worth of data.  And ORB% is not some flighty number that doesn't indicate anything.  Look at the consistency of the C's ORB% in the past few years.  It's not an anomaly: we've been a consistently terrible offensive rebounding team and we're on pace to be the worst in history this year.  Our struggles on the glass are clearly reflected in our offensive rating as well, as we've held up relatively well in every category but ORB% (since the champ season) yet our offensive rating has gone into the tank.

Once again, you completely miss my point. Low ORB% =/= bad offense, and high ORB% =/= good offense.

If you're going to dismiss data showing 10% fluctuations from game to game, you're going to have dismiss most of the box score!

No. Defensive rebounds and FG have much higher in-game sample sizes than offensive rebounds. Further more, offensive rebounds are tied directly into missed shots, which means things get murky when you try to tie it into good offense. Which was the entire point of my post; terrible teams like Minnesota have good offensive rebounding rates, because they are bricking lots of shots.

How about this little snippet? The Celtics have consistently been at the very top of the league for FG% and 3P% these past few years. Our points per game is low, because we focus on slow-paced defensive slugfests, but our efficiency metrics and TS% are all elite (top 10 or top 5). By definition, this lowers the opportunity for offensive rebounds.

And you switched from ORB% to o-rebs per game in the middle of your post.

That's because the ESPN stats page refuses to let you sort teams by ORB%, and I'm sure as hell not going to do it by hand. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between ORB% and ORB/game, and the latter is far more frequently used by analysts to rank teams than ORB% ANYWAY, so you can't just throw out my post because of this.

The per game numbers aren't reliable as the noise of FG% and pace is too loud.

The noise affects ORB% just as much as per-game. All ORB% is a proportion tied to the per game numbers. These aren't radically different stats. For example, if you have 7 offensive rebound opportunities in a game, and get 2 of them, versus if you had 5 opportunities in a game and make 2 of them. Per game and percentage are both incredible volatile when you are talking about such small numbers. Why do you think nobody cares about steal percentage or block percentage?

ORB% isn't the key to a championship, but it's a vital part of offense.

Then why are good offensive teams consistently not highly ranked at ORB%? The recent Lakers teams were, but thing about their style of play in those championship seasons. Kobe is no longer an efficient scorer, he is a volume scorer, which means lots of opportunities for Pau to clean-up. Same situation for Shaq with D-Wade and Lebron. All of which is reflected in the numbers.

If you are historically terrible at it, it's going to weigh down your offense, which in turn is going to make it much harder for you to contend.

Yet the stats, and recent NBA history, show the EXACT OPPOSITE.

Look at 2010. The Celtics were 4th in FG% that year, and almost dead last in ORB%. The Lakers were 3rd in ORB%, and below the league average in FG% (18th).

In 2008, both the Celtics and the Lakers were top 5 FG%, and bottom 10 ORB%.

This trend holds true for other contenders. Good offensive rebound and good offense are not synonymous, and in fact often is not.

Rye, I never said good ORB% = good offense; all I said was that it was a vital part of offense.   

As for the idea that ORB% is as subject to noise as the per game stat, I think you're wrong.  If you grab 10 of 20 offensive rebounding opportunities in one game and 5 of 10 the next, the raw totals show a sharp (and misleading) decline whereas the ORB% stays the same (50% in this case). ORB% is correcting for variance in pace and FG%; raw totals are not.

Basketball-reference.com season summaries provide a sortable listing by ORB% if you are interested, by the way.
 

[Who]

Possession creation as a whole is a big problem for this team.

For me, it's the biggest factor holding them back from being a legitimate title contender.

[mmmmm]

The problem with offensive rebounding stats is that the sample size is always so small. I mean, the difference between the top and the bottom team in offensive rebounding (Chicago and us, respectively), is 6. The difference between 1st and 20th is 3.

There are just so few offensive rebound opportunities in any basketball game, that a difference of one or two boards makes a huge impact on the percentage/efficiency numbers, that may be out of proportion to its actual impact on the game.

  The way you have to look at it is each offensive rebound is basically an extra possession, and teams average close to a point per possession. The Knicks are 22nd in offense, another three offensive rebounds and they might be 8th or so in offense.

No, an ORB is not an 'extra possession'.  It is simply a continuation of the current possession.

This gets to the fundamental game-value difference between offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds.  A DRB is 100% the stoppage of a current possession with zero points.  An ORB is just a continued _chance_ to score on the current possession.

I don't think that differentiation is meaningful. The alternative to getting an offensive rebound after a shot is the defense getting the rebound and having a possession. Getting the offensive rebound keeps them from having that possession. I'm not sure how you are defining a possession, but the value of an offensive rebound is another possession.

Are you requiring a change of possession for an 'extra possession'?

Your differentiation between ORB and DRB are also misleading; the alternative to getting a defensive rebound is giving the other team another _chance_ to score. By getting an ORB, you have 100% stopped the other team from having a possession. You are playing language games.

I am playing no language games.  A possession is a well defined concept in basketball statistics.  And it is important because in the course of a game both teams will always have almost the exact same number of possessions, plus or minus 1.  Thus 'per possession' statistics are the best normalized way of looking at many statistics.

If you grab your own missed shot there has been no change of possession.

Your last sentence is missing the point.  If you grab your own rebound you have maintained your possession - but (unless it is the last seconds of a game) you have not at all stopped them from eventually having their possession.  You have simply delayed it while you continue to try to score on the current one.  Your chance to score before the end of the possession is generally correlated with your FG%, though usually off rebounds you get closer-in shots.  Thus a higher than normal FG%, but still far less than 100%.

If the other team grabs your missed shot, you have 0% chance of scoring on that possession because it is over.

[mmmmm]

Offensive rebounds are great when you get them.  But their importance to winning the game is overrated by many fans.   The main stat that ORBs correlates with is missed shots.   

Every year, if you look at the rankings for which teams grab a lot of ORBs versus those who don't it is almost a reverse of winning percentage.  Yes there are exceptions.  Some years you do have an a few good teams (like this year's Bulls) that happen to also grab a lot of ORBs.  But more often than not, the majority of top-10 ORB% teams have mediocre-to-poor records.  Conversely, the majority of the bottom-10 ORB% teams each year tend to have winning records.

Doc's strategy is not too different than what most winning Celtic teams have used in the past: 

1) Shoot for a high FG%.
2) Hold your opponent to a low FG%.
3) Rebound on defense.

If you can shoot above ~47% and hold your opponent to below ~43%, and you grab _defensive_ rebounds at above 70%, then you are almost always better off getting back on defense the moment you take your shot, rather than trying to crash the boards on offense.

The best teams at grabbing offensive rebounds only grab them about 30% of the time.  And that is the _best_ at it.  Most of the time teams only get the ORB about 25% of the time.  Crashing the boards also puts you behind on defense, potentially exposing yourself to easy fast-break points.

If you instead get back on transition D, prevent easy layups and hold your opponent to a low FG%, making them miss at least ~57% of their first shots, and grab the defensive board at least 70%, then your chance of getting the ball back before they score is better than ~40%.

Note - the real numbers are more in favor of that than the conservative ones I am using here.

So, from the moment the ball leaves your hand on the shot, you have a much higher chance of getting the ball back before they score if you get back on transition D instead of 'crashing the boards'.

Obviously, if a rebound is there to be grabbed, you should go for it.  This math is all about the general strategy, not saying you shouldn't try to grab offensive rebounds when they are there to be grabbed.

And obviously, if you are behind in the closing seconds and need to score on a possession quickly, you need to crash the boards because there may not be enough clock to execute the above strategy.

But the vast majority of the time, transition D should be a much higher priority than crashing the offensive boards.

Our defense was just as good when we were an average ORB% team in 07/08 and a good one in 08/09.  Leading the league in ORB% hasn't stopped the Bulls from fielding an elite defense.  Rather, our offense has completely fallen apart since our ORB% fell to the league bottom.

I'm not claiming that ORB% is the holy grail.  It's just that our struggles there have largely been the source of our offensive woes since the 08/09 season. 

And I'm not really buying this idea that our ORB% is a result of coaching strategy.  It has much more to do with personnel.

Doc and Thibodeau both have specifically stated that ORBs are a secondary priority to transition D - so no, it is indeed about strategy.  Again, that doesn't mean you don't pursue grabbing ORBs when they present themselves.  But its not the highest priority.

As I indicated in my post, having a high ORB% is not exclusively the province of bad teams and you occasionally have good teams like the Bulls and Lakers who have high ORB%.  But the correlation between winning and high ORB% is simply not there.  And, in fact, if anything it is a slightly negative correlation.  In most seasons, around 6-7 of the top ORB% teams will have losing records and around 6-7 of the bottom ORB% teams will have winning records.

The one thing that ORB% does tend to correlate with is low FG%.  Teams that miss a lot of shots tend to 'compensate' by fighting for rebounds to improve their possession scoring efficiency.

[guava_wrench]

The problem with offensive rebounding stats is that the sample size is always so small. I mean, the difference between the top and the bottom team in offensive rebounding (Chicago and us, respectively), is 6. The difference between 1st and 20th is 3.

There are just so few offensive rebound opportunities in any basketball game, that a difference of one or two boards makes a huge impact on the percentage/efficiency numbers, that may be out of proportion to its actual impact on the game.

  The way you have to look at it is each offensive rebound is basically an extra possession, and teams average close to a point per possession. The Knicks are 22nd in offense, another three offensive rebounds and they might be 8th or so in offense.

No, an ORB is not an 'extra possession'.  It is simply a continuation of the current possession.

This gets to the fundamental game-value difference between offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds.  A DRB is 100% the stoppage of a current possession with zero points.  An ORB is just a continued _chance_ to score on the current possession.

I don't think that differentiation is meaningful. The alternative to getting an offensive rebound after a shot is the defense getting the rebound and having a possession. Getting the offensive rebound keeps them from having that possession. I'm not sure how you are defining a possession, but the value of an offensive rebound is another possession.

Are you requiring a change of possession for an 'extra possession'?

Your differentiation between ORB and DRB are also misleading; the alternative to getting a defensive rebound is giving the other team another _chance_ to score. By getting an ORB, you have 100% stopped the other team from having a possession. You are playing language games.

I am playing no language games.  A possession is a well defined concept in basketball statistics.  And it is important because in the course of a game both teams will always have almost the exact same number of possessions, plus or minus 1.  Thus 'per possession' statistics are the best normalized way of looking at many statistics.

If you grab your own missed shot there has been no change of possession.

Your last sentence is missing the point.  If you grab your own rebound you have maintained your possession - but (unless it is the last seconds of a game) you have not at all stopped them from eventually having their possession.  You have simply delayed it while you continue to try to score on the current one.  Your chance to score before the end of the possession is generally correlated with your FG%, though usually off rebounds you get closer-in shots.  Thus a higher than normal FG%, but still far less than 100%.

If the other team grabs your missed shot, you have 0% chance of scoring on that possession because it is over.

You missed the point. You do not understand what the earlier poster means by "is basically an extra possession". Clearly, that does not mean it is literally another possession.

You have failed to give a reason why a defensive rebound is more valuable than an offensive rebound. You say a lot, but none of it builds an argument. It seems to me a bunch of disjointed statements. What is going on in the game is very simple. Either you have the ball or you don't.

You say "If the other team grabs your missed shot, you have 0% chance of scoring on that possession because it is over", but so what? Your chance went from around 50% (in a TS% sense) down to 0%. And?

This should be simple. When you get an offensive board at 5:55 in the 2nd quarter, the chance of the other team scoring at 5:56 is close to 0%. If you get a defensive board at 5:55 in the 2nd quarter, the chance of the other team scoring at 5:56 is still close to 0%.

The reason we don't go for more offensive boards isn't that they are less valuable than defensive boards. It is because we consider stopping the fast break more valuable than aggressively crashing the offensive boards. Add to that lack of effort to get offensive boards the lack of a great offensive rebounding big man, and you get our pathetic numbers.

[guava_wrench]

The one thing that ORB% does tend to correlate with is low FG%.  Teams that miss a lot of shots tend to 'compensate' by fighting for rebounds to improve their possession scoring efficiency.

Plus, there are more opportunities for ORB if there are more misses.

We are a high FG% high TO team, both of which mean less misses to rebound.

[mmmmm]

The problem with offensive rebounding stats is that the sample size is always so small. I mean, the difference between the top and the bottom team in offensive rebounding (Chicago and us, respectively), is 6. The difference between 1st and 20th is 3.

There are just so few offensive rebound opportunities in any basketball game, that a difference of one or two boards makes a huge impact on the percentage/efficiency numbers, that may be out of proportion to its actual impact on the game.

  The way you have to look at it is each offensive rebound is basically an extra possession, and teams average close to a point per possession. The Knicks are 22nd in offense, another three offensive rebounds and they might be 8th or so in offense.

No, an ORB is not an 'extra possession'.  It is simply a continuation of the current possession.

  Obviously this is true in terms of points per possession measurements. But my point was that it gives you another crack at scoring on your possession. Getting more offensive rebounds will increase your scoring efficiency.

Yes, indeed, IF you grab an ORB, it is without question a good thing and indeed increases your chances to score on that possession (versus zero if you do not grab it).  The strategic question though, is whether it is worth the _effort_ to try to grab it.   As I indicated, most team's have about a 25% chance of grabbing an ORB.  The best teams have about 30%.  That's your odds of getting it back on an ORB once the ball leaves your hand on the shot (if it doesn't go in).   Alternatively, if you pursue a tight transition D strategy that forces low percentage shots, your chance of getting it back before they score is significantly higher.

And getting it back before they score is equally without question a good thing as well.

This gets to the fundamental game-value difference between offensive rebounds and defensive rebounds.  A DRB is 100% the stoppage of a current possession with zero points.  An ORB is just a continued _chance_ to score on the current possession.

  This is fairly nebulous. When you get an offensive rebound you prevent the opponent from getting a defensive rebound from that shot. You're preventing them from realizing that game-value, which should have equal value for you.

No, nothing nebulous about the difference.  There are a finite number of possessions in each game and you will each have almost the exact same number of them (about 90 each at the pace the Celtics play).  Points surrendered on defensive possessions are equally as important as points scored on offensive possessions.  Thus a 100% stoppage of a defensive possession with no points is worth more game value than 50-60% chance to still score on an offensive possession.

[mmmmm]

That's because the ESPN stats page refuses to let you sort teams by ORB%, and I'm sure as hell not going to do it by hand. Furthermore, there is a direct relationship between ORB% and ORB/game, and the latter is far more frequently used by analysts to rank teams than ORB% ANYWAY, so you can't just throw out my post because of this.

Just in case it helps, you may find it useful to use:

http://www.basketball-reference.com

Their league 'summary' page has various team stat tables that are each individually sortable. 

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2012.html

Scroll down to the bottom to the 'Miscelaneous Statistics' table and you can sort teams by ORB%.

And yes - your points are all dead-on and supported overwhelmingly by the data.

[Fafnir]

Possession creation as a whole is a big problem for this team.

For me, it's the biggest factor holding them back from being a legitimate title contender.

We've been doing better on the defensive glass with Garnett/Stiemsma rotation at C.

But we'll have to step even that up to another level in the playoffs if we want to make a run. We're not going to get a ton of offensive boards, what this team is capable of is upping its defensive board work or forcing more turnovers.

Our last finals run was built in part on turning Miami/Cleveland/Orlando over a ton.

[LB3533]

Check this chart out -


From here: http://arturogalletti.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/predictive-stats-bad-metrics-correlation-in-the-nba/

I haven't read the whole article, nor do I know how they came up with the formula....but anyway it seems the chart is based solely on that particular season alone (2009-2010).

Look and see how horrible ORB (4.3%) is as a metric that correlates to winning.

Based on the chart, it would be better if you chucked up a 3 point attempt (6.5%) and you'd have a better chance to win the game!

It's also interesting to see that TOV is a greater correlator to winning than TRB!