Capela is not a great rebounder. He's had some nice numbers in limited minutes, but he gets rebounds ripped from his grasp too easily. He's really weak.
Dwight is a bit of an overrated rebounder masked by the fact he gets a high quantity of them, especially when it's contested. We were bad last year on defensive rebounds too when Dwight was playing. Our team gets a lot of offensive rebounds but we give up more than we get. Dwight's contested rebound % last year was 42%. Uncontested 57% Just to put that in perspective uncontested/contested Brook Lopez 53%/61% Enes Kanter 51/57 Whiteside 51/64 Drummond 50/52 T.Thompson 48/56 Ryan Anderson 50/55 Anthony Davis 45/69 Gobert 46/53 There are tons of players better than him. You couple this with the fact that he's probably our best rebounder and you have one of the worst rebounding teams in the NBA again.
IF you sort his rebound %'s by distance shot taken it's a lot worse. His numbers outside of a shot in the 0-6ft range is like 32%. His average rebound distance is 3.5 feet. Yes, those shots result in longer rebounds but look at some of these other players and their much higher. The best rebounders in the NBA, average get their rebounds on average 5-6 ft away from the basket.
Here is Dwight last year 2014/15 Here is Dwight this year 2015/16 Dwight in 2013/14 Here is Drummond last year 2014/15 Deandre Jordan in 2014/15 I'm not sure if its his anticipation skills eroding, quickness, he's being lazy chasing down boards, no one helps him box out or what it is. But Dwight is not even in the convo for one of the best rebounders in the NBA anymore. Sure he can grab them when no one is contesting, but so can everyone else.
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? It's true that there are a fair number of guys in the NBA who are much better at snagging contested rebounds than Dwight is. This is fact and has been discussed ad nauseum.
I'm not sure how that is relevant to our rebounding woes. Actually I do know how this is relevant. We don't get them because we're playing small and starting two wing players that aren't awesome rebounders. I look at stats, thats all I do. He's shooting well (which I'm both wrong and surprised), but he still can't rebound. We shouldn't be starting him.
Small can't stop. Because by saying that you mean we should play Jones more. This season he played 63 minutes total, his over under is -33. All 3 games he played in we looked desperately bad. First game he was out was against Miami. We led by 21 in that game. Until that game we were losing desperately from start to finish. Then follows 4 games winning streak. Jones returns against worst team in the NBA and instant loss. We are back to sucking for most of the game. Coincidence? Probably, but it sure shows how he doesn't impact the game at all. At least not in a good way. And at this point no one is giving us anything for a 5 months rental on him. Not even a second rounder. My suggestion would be to bench him for good. Give him DMo treatment - one smallest mistake and you're off the floor. Even if that means he gets to play 15 seconds a game.
Small ball doesn't need to stop. Small ball just needs to stop when it isn't working and actively hurting us. McHale is stubborn to a fault. Keeps lineups that aren't working way too long. Plays guys too many minutes when they don't deserve it. Doesn't make adjustments until far too late, if at all. Among many other things.
I do agree that this lineup is one of our better options right now. We really need D-Mo back, but he's pretty bad at rebounding too. What we really need is Dwight to play better, play like the supermax player that he's being paid to be. None of this is a surprise though, as I said, we were really bad last year too and didn't add anyone of significance. I also agree with the posters that said most of our wins were fluke wins. OKC 18 steals win by 5. Clips didn't have CP3, who is arguably their most important player. Harden also had to put up 45 and we won by 3. Kings didn't have Cousins, won by 6, Harden puts up 45. The Magic are a decent team, still took OT. They obviously still count as wins, but hardly a reason to consider us championship contenders at this point, especially with all of our structural problems -- poor shooting, defense, rebounding, Ty Lawson looking kind of bad.
Canaan/Harden/Ariza/Kostas/Dorsey was pretty good when Harden put up 40+ a game. So yeah, difficult to get too high about a lot of those wins.
I really don't mean to be a Debbie downer here, I had high hopes for us going into this preseason. We are supposed to be championship contenders. It's more disappointing than anything. We added Lawson onto a WCF team that mostly stayed together and have Dwight more often, but right now... Our only path to a victory is when harden drops 45. You look at the Warriors for instance, curry has an off shooting night and they win by 10, he goes off and they win by 25. We aren't even close to them right now and I agree with the people who say McHale needs to go. Something needs to change, because this team isn't gonna win the chip.
Warriors always have guys moving on offense, setting screens. We have that only to start the possession. And even that's not always. With this small lineup we're somewhat similar to Warriors, our all guys can switch because similar height but we settle for settling around the 3 and waiting. Sure there's 5 foot Lawson who can't guard his man and can't switch with anyone. The more you think the more reasons you can think of why we suck. We don't have continuity going from season to season because there is no real system. Harden isolations or someone posting up is not a system. One pick n roll and then improvise is not a system. At this point I wouldn't even mind to try triangle. It doesn't fit us, but at least we'd have a system. We are no contender. We totally changed our style (went to ultra small ball) two games into the season, that just shows how we have no idea what we're doing with this team. Not a contender. Not even close right now.
The point is, going small hasn't really been a failure for us...people are just overreacting because we lost against the Nets... Will w continue to lose more than we win with it? Who knows, but as of now, not only are we not at the point where we HAVE to axe it, but we pretty much have to use it because of injuries...thats what is so frustrating about this thread. Small ball got us going this season, remember that, and it continued because TJ went out. So it's not like it's our preferred starting line-up and McHale refuses to change it. It'll change soon, it would've all along.
No, it's going to end when TJ is ready to start again, which is any game now...the only reason we went small was because TJ couldn't play and McHale was forced to go with MC. Do people not remember this? We're not going small because we wanted to...
You give McHale too much credit. Even he admits that he blindly puts in diff rotations until works. Last year's comeback was a fluke.
