

How Rebounds Work - ritchiea
http://grantland.com/features/how-rebounds-work/

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bmoresbest55
As a competitive basketball player at center(the biggest player, typically) I
can attest to more than the occasional randomness of rebounding. The main goal
is keeping your man, on offense or defense, from getting the ball. Then worry
about rebounding the ball, yourself.

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cujo
I usually enjoy reading these "advanced metrics" findings in the basketball
realm, but this one isn't much. I guess it allows for these pictures to be
printed out and hung up somewhere, but anyone who has played basketball
competitively knows this as an instinct. Heck, I imagine most people who
simply take a hard look at the angles can intuit this.

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slashnull
The rebound visualizer widget is the illest thing

[http://grantland.com/wp-content/themes/vip/espn-
grantland/as...](http://grantland.com/wp-content/themes/vip/espn-
grantland/assets/rebounds/index.html)

Edit: damn, I need to git gud with D3

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Jonovono
Another cool basketball article: [http://grantland.com/features/expected-
value-possession-nba-...](http://grantland.com/features/expected-value-
possession-nba-analytics/)

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mozboz
Clicked expecting relationship advice. Stayed to learn about basketball.

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clairity
goldsberry says that randomness in rebounding is one of the things that keeps
basketball interesting in the era of advanced analytics.

but as a player, there's not much to it. of course it helps if you're tall,
but if you're diligent about boxing out and go after the ball, you'll get
rebounds. you don't need to over-think the randomness since it will average
out over a game. and if your teammates are doing their jobs boxing out, your
team should have favorable chances of getting rebounds just through floor
coverage alone.

ps - [http://www.secondspectrum.com](http://www.secondspectrum.com) is doing
some really cool visualization of sportsvu data from the nba.

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misterbwong
I'd be curious about the results when taking fatigue into consideration. Seems
like a person shooting in the 4th on tired legs is more likely either shoot
short or over shoot by a larger margin due to their fatigue affecting fine
motor skills.

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photosite
I can't think of anyone more highly attuned to the instinct part of this than
Dennis Rodman.

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shakesbeard
_" We were standing in the lay-up line, warming up and shooting, and Rodman
was standing back and watching everybody shoot. I said, ‘Hey, come on, you
have to participate; everybody’s shooting lay-ups, you have to shoot lay-ups,
too.’ And he said, ‘I’m just watching the rotations on the basketball.’ I
said, ‘Excuse me?’ He said, ‘Like, when you shoot, your ball spins three times
in the air. Joe’s sometimes has 3 1/2 or four times.’

That’s how far Rodman had taken rebounding, to a totally different level, like
off the charts. He knew the rotation of every person that shot on our team —
if it spins sideways, where it would bounce, how often it would bounce left or
right. He had rebounding down to a science, and I never heard anyone think or
talk about rebounding and defense the way he could break it down."_

Isiah Thomas on Dennis Rodman's rebounding.
[http://www.businessinsider.com/dennis-rodman-basketball-
geni...](http://www.businessinsider.com/dennis-rodman-basketball-
genius-2014-3)

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GFK_of_xmaspast
The common narration is that players like Rodman have "instinct" instead of
"smarts". I'll leave it unsaid as to why this is.

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agumonkey
When you pay attention to data that much, it's a science just like any other
kind right ?

