Good one ROOKIE! Seriously, do you really need these numbers to figure out what happened in the first game?
Yeah, that is standard WSJ style. The New York Times does the same thing. It is something they've been doing for like 100 years and common really only to those papers and to the BBC. Think of it as old skool journalisticness.
There's much more that goes into those numbers. Boozer had 16 defensive rebounds and 3 offensive rebounds. Battier isn't really responsible for Boozer defensive rebounds (it's not his job to block out defensive rebounders when the Rockets are on offense). And Battier wasn't guarding Boozer on the other end, so you can't pin all the responsibility on him for Boozer's 3 offensive boards. As for Battier's lack of contribution on the boards ... I agree. We could use more rebounding. But he wasn't going to get a lot of defensive rebounds because (a) he played half the game at SF, not PF, (b) when he was the PF, Yao was doign an excellent job on the defensive boards, (c) the Jazz weren't missing very much due to the Rockets poor half court defense. And I do believe he was responsible for a one or two offensive rebounds via tips that he wasn't credited for. What I'm saying is you can't just look at the numbers in isolation and draw conclusions. There needs to be an understanding of the context in which they occurred. Particularly when you're looking at a very small sample -- like one game.
"Is He Called Just Plain Meat Or Should It Be Mr. Loaf?" -- New York Times headline, July 17, 1991, page C14
This is just a guess, but perhaps they used his college numbers to calculate the probability of his being more productive than Battier. To be honest though, it seems they weren't looking for another rookie to break into the system. There is a great advantage to have a known quantity rather than trying to guess how well a player will make the transition to the higher level. Battier was the best available known quantity that they could deal for. Personally, I think it was a great decision both statistically and logically. The article was well done also.. thanks for posting it!
I understand your point about Battier not being responsible for Boozer's boards, but I don't see how we can have our starting PF get one rebound in that game. Even at SF. One rebound??? My biggest concern with Battier is his rebounding, he seemed to be an average rebounder at SF but as a PF especially next to Yao we need a guy that can crash the boards. Yes Yao is 7'6" and a good rebounder, but he's not the most mobile guy so we need a PF that can rebound well.
I don't expect Battier to be a good rebounder for a PF. I agree that's something we'd be sacrificing. Like Van Gundy says, you have to find the player who provides the best overall fit. If we go with an athletic rebounding machine next to Yao, in what area would we sacrifice? Battier offers smart decision making, solid team defense, offensive efficiency and versatility. That's a pretty strong package ... even if his individual rebounding looks mediocre. It's all about finding the best combination of skills to plug in alongside the rest of the players.
Seems I struck a nerve... Hope you can carry on tossing around the 82games.com stats and end up making millions doing it.
