In his fourth NBA season, Toronto Raptors center Andrea Bargnani is averaging 6.0 rebounds per game over 34.8 minutes. While this rebounding average is a career-best for him, it’s still terrible for a seven-foot center. How terrible? Here are all the seven-foot players in NBA history who averaged at least 30 minutes in a season while grabbing fewer than seven rebounds per game.
Two players made this list twice: Bargnani in his past two seasons and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when he was well past his prime. It might appear that Bargnani has improved from last season, but the per-game increase is a result of his increased playing time — he averaged 6.1 rebounds per 36 minutes last season and he’s averaging 6.2 rebounds per 36 minutes this season.
Does rebounding really matter all that much? Well, just four of the top 15 teams in rebounding differential (team rebounds per game minus the opposing team rebounds per game) this season have losing records and just six of the bottom 15 teams have winning records. The top five teams in rebounding differential (Memphis, Cleveland, San Antonio, Orlando, Oklahoma City) have an impressive average winning percentage of .647 while the bottom five teams (New Orleans, New Jersey, Indiana, New York, Golden State) have a wretched average winning percentage of .277. I’d say that’s pretty compelling evidence that rebounding matters.
Faced with that evidence, it doesn’t appear to be a winning formula to have a starting center who is among one of the worst rebounders for his size in NBA history. Let’s see if Jay Triano or whoever is coaching the Raptors next season can figure that out.
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03.15.10
@ 12:52 PM EDT
interesting perspective but rebound cannot be taken into account seperatly from defense and more precisely opponent field goal percentage.
To my knowledge, Toronto has a terrible defense and I guess that the fact opponents do have a high FG% against the Raps means Bargnani has less defensive rebounds opportunity than, say, a Dwight Howard or whatever 7 foot guy in a good defensive team.
Another conclusion might have been to ay that the Raps have too great of FG percentage on the offense which would deprive Bargnani from any offensive rebounds, but that might be a little bit too far-stretched
03.15.10
@ 1:06 PM EDT
So if Andrea was a few inches shorter we’d be a better team. Interesting.
03.15.10
@ 1:14 PM EDT
mctyg: The league average for total team rebounds this season is 41.8 per game. The Raptors average 40.3 rebounds per game while their opponents average 41.7 per game. So there are are 1.6 fewer rebounds available to both games in a typical Raptors game because Toronto’s offence is so good and their defence is so awful.
According to basketball-reference.com, Andrea’s Rebounding Percentage (that’s the percentage of available rebounds he grabs) is 10.2% this season. Since Bargnani plays around 36 minutes per game, he would grab 10% of the 1.2 extra rebounds on a team with an average number of rebounds. Basically, it’s a difference of an extra 0.1 rebounds per game for Bargnani, so it’s not really significant.
03.15.10
@ 1:17 PM EDT
eastcoast: If you change the height to something like 6-9 or 6-10 and over, then you start getting forwards in the mix. No matter how you slice it, the Raptors are set up for failure with Bargnani at center. Whether that’s his fault or the fault of the people trying to make him something he’s not (an NBA-caliber center) is open for debate.
03.15.10
@ 1:45 PM EDT
BC and Co want him to be a NBA caliber center so bad its not even funny, He just does not want to give it his all take him out Starting line up he’s hurting the team with his inconsistant play !!!
03.15.10
@ 1:48 PM EDT
So what do you want BC/Triano to do? Have him come off the bench for 17 minutes a games? Trade him? How about for Rashard Lewis? He’s making 20 million a year for the next few years. What are his numbers again? Oh yeah, 14.2 pts, 4.5 rebs, and .3 blocks a game. Not bad for a power forward.
Bargnani is what he is just as Rashard Lewis is what he is. Both are jump shooting big men who can’t rebound. At least Bargs comes at half the price and should improve over the next few years. And he’s here for another six years so might as well get used to him.
03.15.10
@ 2:02 PM EDT
Michel G: I think Bargnani would be best suited to be used as a sixth man. He has obvious scoring talents, which is what you want from a sixth man. He doesn’t have the prototypical size of a sixth man since they tend to be guards, but his style of play doesn’t match his size anyway.
03.15.10
@ 2:54 PM EDT
when bosh leave town, bargs could move to power fowward position which suite him best
evans or amir could start at center,
turk,he’s usuless right now, , the only reason why he put up points in orlando is because
d-howard didnt demand too many shots,
when bosh leave , it will open up more shots for him and hecould be more effective
j-jack is a good back up point guard, and makes too many careless passes as a starter
trade jose and get a starting point guard and let demar come off them, we need a good shooting 2 guard that can score in bunches, spend the money (if bosh leaves) on a 2guard
i personally think the reason why bargs hasnt improved his rebounding and overall game is because of bosh
bosh is a great player(not a leader by any means, he’s injured every year, he will be 2nd option somewhere else if he leaves,) he forgets about teammates at time and cares about his contract more then anything .all the player let him have the rebounds,thereofore bargs or any other player cant average double double .
how many teams have there center and power forward that average double double,NONE. usually 1 player on every team goes for the rebounds
as for coach traino, fire him and bring in Avery Johnson
03.15.10
@ 2:58 PM EDT
With an unconventional offensive player, there still needs to be roles filled by other position players to tend to those needs.
If Barg is precisely what we think he is (a bad rebounder), how statistically significant would the rebounding numbers be if he wasn’t in the lineup? For example, if Reggie Evans played every game this season and equalled Barg’s minutes, would Toronto’s rebounding numbers be better?
03.15.10
@ 3:44 PM EDT
kingperry: Naturally, the Raptors’ rebounding would be better if Evans played Bargnani’s minutes, but the team offence would be significantly worse. I don’t think the issue is that Bargnani shouldn’t be playing, it’s that he shouldn’t be a starting center.
03.15.10
@ 5:22 PM EDT
Bargnani will have defensive problems regardless of what position he plays. Slow feet.
03.15.10
@ 6:44 PM EDT
Bargnani isn’t a center. He’s shooting power forward (no emphasis on the power spot). He isn’t strong and is never going to be a defensive rebounding prowless. Think of a more athletic Mehmet Okur as his ceiling
03.15.10
@ 8:45 PM EDT
Totally agree with you Scott. Although I believe there are three players that appear twice on the list; Krstic is the third.
03.15.10
@ 9:03 PM EDT
Eastcoast,
I would change the sentiment from “So if Andrea was a few inches shorter we’d be a better team. Interesting.” — from height to quickness.
If Andrea was quicker and therefore able to play effectively as a small forward (defensively more than anything else) while allowing another big (say Amir Johnson) up front then his rebounding wouldn’t be an issue.
Given his lack of quickness and general mobility, Andrea is forced to play as a center and at that position relative to his competition he is a very poor rebounder and hurts the Raptors considerably in that department.
03.15.10
@ 9:07 PM EDT
The rebounding is a major concern but the defensive ability is the primary problem.
If Andrea was able to play very good or better defense the team would be able to live with his weak rebounding.
03.15.10
@ 11:08 PM EDT
Isn’t this blog a total ripoff of this RealGM thread: http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=964072
03.15.10
@ 11:36 PM EDT
SP: The RealGM Raptors board is so comprehensive in what they talk about that it’s inevitable that people are going to repeat a theme from one of their threads. I made reference to Andrea’s historically bad rebounding on RaptorBlog.com before that thread was created.
03.16.10
@ 10:07 AM EDT
Bargnani isn’t really a true centre … he’s more a point-forward because he positions himself at the arc on offense, and he’s usually guarding somebody near the arc too. If he just hung around the basket, his rebounding numbers would improve, but that’s not his game. In fact, he’s doing a good rebounding job given his style of play.
03.20.10
@ 7:22 PM EDT
[...] 8 Points, 9 Seconds. "Man, did this dude just did that?" is the new best quote ever.6th: Nothing Easy. Andrea Bargnani(notes) isn’t so great at getting rebounds.7th: Indexed. NBA players get more [...]
04.11.10
@ 7:03 PM EDT
FIRE Jay Triano HE IS A BUM