How does a team know whether it is a good rebounding team?
Most teams simply look at the rebounding totals for both teams, and the rebounding margin between them and their opponents. However, rebounding totals alone can be deceiving. By using rebounding percentage you can take into account pace and field goal percentage which can differ widely by team and season.
Additionally, focusing on offensive rebounds considers their importance in the game. They can demoralize a defense by extending possessions and creating easy put-back scoring opportunities or open kick-out jump shots. A good way to look at this is to compare your offensive rebounding percentage with your opponents offensive rebounding percentage and the margin, positive or negative, that is created. You can do this game by game and compare how it affects your wins and losses. You can also do this season by season comparing your seasonal success, or you can do it with all of the teams in your conference and see how it compares to the success of teams in the conference.
Helpful formulas:
- Your offensive rebounding percentage:
- Your ORB% = OffReb / (OffReb + Opp DefReb)
- Your opponent’s offensive rebounding percentage is:
- Opp ORB% = Opp OffReb / (Opp OffReb + Your DefReb)
For example:
2018-19 OFF REB % = 28 % vs OPP OFF REB % = 27 % + 1%
2019-20 OFF REB % = 24 % vs OPP OFF REB % = 29 % – 5%
Using rebounding percentages, you can see that rebounding fell off significantly from one season to the other. Now you have another statistic to use in comparing the two season’s results. Here is a chart to get you started.
Stay Tuned for the next coaches corner blog, and the final post of the Factors of Basketball Success – Free Throw Rate.