I see many career stats that point to our big men struggling on the boards. The starting PF and C are the primary rebounders for nearly every team. Could Batum lead a team in rebounding that out rebounds opponents? Perhaps in theory, but I don't believe that is possible. Rebounding is one of the stats that is the most consistent for all players. It translates very well from college to the NBA. Players rebounding rates historically do not change a great deal from one year to the next. Obviously we will know more as the season plays out. That will be the case at any point in time with any argument. We will always know what will happen tomorrow after tomorrow has happened. Duh! That doesn't mean we can't make an educated projection. We can use past history to make these projections. Lillard and Aldridge project to be our leading scorers this year based on their past performance. Nearly all our players project to be between competent to great 3 point shooters based off past performance. Yet we don't have any guarantees these players will shoot better than Gerald Wallace from 3. We don't have any guarantee Aldridge and Lopez will be poor rebounders. But using their best career historical rebounding rate they project to be far below average at it. That is a major concern of mine prior to a game being played. Game 1 highlighted rebounding as a major problem. I’ll expect Aldridge and Lopez to be a poor rebounding duo until they prove otherwise. If you want to have zero expectations good or bad for a team you’ll never be wrong. But you’ll never be right.
9 rebounds are poor? I don't think so.... How many players in thee league can say they have 9 rebounds from last season? As for using past numbers to present. Last time I checked, batum never got more rebound average than Aldridge, so we can be certain batum won't be our leading rebounder every night. Hell Lopez even averaged more rebounds than batum last season. I'm not understanding why batum and his inability to take control of his passive scoring gets a pass and everyone hounds Aldridge on rebounding?
The problem with only looking at total rebounds per game is Aldridge plays so many damn more minutes than other PF/C. As I’ve said he isn’t a terrible rebounder, he’s just slightly below average. But if you combine him with other below average rebounders well then the team isn’t going to be a good rebounding team. Rebounding isn’t the be all end all. But if the guys paired with Aldridge aren’t good rebounders they need to be great defenders or great scorers or significantly contribute in some aspect of the game. I don't blame Aldridge for his rebounding, thats just not a great part of his game. He is competent, but its not a strength of his. He is great in other areas; a player is not great at everything. He needs a teammate that is an above average rebounder. I think him and Thomas Robinson have the potential to be a good duo in this regard, but I'm skeptical Aldridge and Lopez can coexist effectively.
I actually hope you are right. I think t rob has the highest upside. I think with starting minutes, he would give us a solid 10/12/2 type contribution. He's not there right now, but hopefully he will soon. What would be cool is Leonard and Lopez become our bench, with Leonard being the Aldridge mold and Lopez being the defensive big like t rob
Thank you. I don't understand why this is such a hard concept for people to understand. The longer you're on the court the more rebounds will fall into your hands, the more shots you'll take/make, and your averages will appear greater than they are. LMA has been in the Top 4 for MPG for PFs since the 08/09 season (and Top 10 since we traded Zach), so it should come as no surprise that his PPG and RPG are also in the Top 10 (though actually, he's only been in the Top 10 for RPG since the 10/11 season). Unfortunately LMA only cracked the Top 10 for PF FG% once in all that time, never cracked the Top 30 for TRR, twice cracked the Top 40 for DRR, and once cracked the Top 30 for DRR.
