The NBA's Best Rebounder of 2008 is...Joel Przybilla? (Joel Przybilla!) by: torridjoe Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 08:00:00 AM PST

I confess to being rather a stats geek, whether it's election statistics or fire/EMS or basic demography or sabermetrics. As much as I love football as a sport, it's a big downer that so few games means a small sample and much more variability in football stats. And other than Rachel Maddow and of course Barack Obama, who in politics came out of 2008 with their ticket punched more loudly than former Baseball Prospectus genius turned polling genius Nate Silver? It was a good year for geeks. And then there's basketball, which is kind of in between baseball and football in stat utility. Since the last time I was heavy into the NBA however, folks like ESPN's John Hollinger have injected the stat geek's spirit into it, and several good ratio statistics have been introduced. Some of the better basketball stats in terms of really seeing how well teams and players stack up are the points scored and allowed per 100 possessions, which compares efficiency against an even standard; and point differential (points scored minus points allowed). The differential can also be extrapolated in a quick formula to get what in baseball are called Pythagorean Wins: the expected win-loss total based on point differential. The excess is written off to luck and expected to be balanced out in the future as luck naturally turns. These and other stats at the player level are combined by Hollinger into a PER stat, which estimates total production per minute, pace adjusted. One of the component stats that I think really gets to the essence of a particular skill is the suite of rebound stats. What Hollinger does is compute the percentage of all possible rebounds (offensive, defensive or both) that the player actually got. It stands to reason that every time a shot is missed and you're on the floor, in theory you should have a chance at a rebound and the best rebounders get the highest percentage of available boards. I've spoiled the surprise, of course, but what I discovered while messing around with Hollinger's stats is that when it comes to rebounding, especially on the defensive end, there's no doubt that the best bound-for-bound glassman in the NBA is none other than the Vanilla Gorilla, Joel Pryzbilla. {the amazing truth, below}

torridjoe :: The NBA's Best Rebounder of 2008 is...Joel Przybilla? (Joel Przybilla!)

The combined RebR stat looks like this for you formula heads: (100 x (Rebounds x Team Minutes)) divided by [Player Minutes x (Team Rebounds + Opponent Rebounds)] Which essentially boils down to the percent of all misses that a player gets the board on--the percent of the time you "win" each rebounding contest. On the defensive end it's not even close; Pryzbilla stands well out in front at 33.5% of all defensive rebounds by centers. Dwight Howard is 2nd at 28% and only one guy is at 27%. It's not specified, but I believe that means the percentage of time your opponent misses that you get the rebound, and not the percentage of team rebounds that you get. Also, some forwards like Camby approach Pryz on DRR, but he's still #1 in the league overall and by far at his position, which is the fair way to judge him. I don't look at Pryz's assists and steals compared to Chris Paul, do you? Pryz is not so hot at the offensive board; on the other hand he's also the league leader in field goal percentage at 75.7%(!!), both overall and of course at his position. What boards are there to clean up?  And the RebR figure is the key compound metric here, judging the overall rebounding skills of each player so far this season. By a full percentage point over Dwight Howard and Marcus Camby, Joel Pryzbilla's RebR is a league leading 22.1%. Obviously Pryz is not a scoring machine, although he is a very respectable #50 in PER overall right now (#10 among centers.) His turnover percentage hurts what he accomplishes otherwise. The high rating rests almost entirely on his massive rebounding prowess. He is in there to block and adjust shots, and clear off the boards for the Blazers on the defensive end. That's what centers do, and your eyes telling you Joel's having a career year are exactly right. It's a shame he won't get consideration for All-Star; clearly he's been worthy of it.   Here's something I didn't give away in the headline: Greg Oden is #6 in DRR among centers, #4 in ORR, and #5 in RebR at his position. That's right, the Blazers have the #1 and #5 best rebounding centers in the NBA this year. Among all rookies Oden is #1 DRR, #2 ORR (Love), and #1 RebR. Quit hating on the guy, all right? He's a freakin' vacuum.  Before ending on a high note Blazer wise, at shooting forward and point guard there are no Blazers in top 20 PER; at power forward LaMarcus is #13 at his position in PER. Amazingly his name doesn't appear in the top 20 at field goal %, assist %, turnover percentage, DRR, ORR or RebR. He does have the 4th best power forward's turnover ratio, a scant 6.4% of possessions. The stats don't tell the whole story with LaMarcus, but on a pure production level we need to see more from LMA. And then there's Brandon. #6 in the NBA in PER rating, behind only such stratospheric performers as LeBron James and Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade and Dwight Howard. (The Nets' great PG Devin Harris is #5.)  And pssst...he's ahead of Kobe and Duncan and Shaq and Nowitski and Bosh and Ming and Garnett. Hah! Roy wasn't mouthing, NBA refs--he deserves the treatment and other than Harris he's the only one in that group not getting it. At his position, Roy is arguably the #1 shooting guard in the nation so far, although Wade is currently #1 in PER by a fairly substantial margin. Wade must make up his advantage somewhere along the line, but Roy's "true" shooting percentage (TS%) is higher than Wade's, his assist ratio the same, Roy's turnover ratio much better at only 7%, and his RebR essentially the same as Wade's. If he played in Miami's time zone Brandon would be on the cover of everything. As it is, by rights Brandon Roy should start the game at SG for the West in the All Star game. The stats are fun to mess with--who's the ball-hoardingest?...Quincy Douby, 3.9%!, or who's the best true shooter?...Ray Allen by a mile, 63% but Roy #9--and they explain why Portland shows up so well in the power rankings and Hollinger's playoff odds. Your eyes aren't deceiving you; against the toughest competition the league has, some of the Blazers are performing at very high levels night in and night out.

Tags: ESPN, stats, John Hollinger, Joel Pzrybilla, pro basketball, Blazers, NBA, (All Tags)

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