—“This is a calculated gamble from Thunder general manager Sam Presti, the architect of the roster, and Daigneault, who deploys the smaller, thinner, quicker lineup combinations. They’ve prioritized spacing and skill over pure power. They want everyone on the floor to shoot, pass and dribble with instinct. That includes the center spot. If the five-man spaces, there’s more room for Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams to drive. OKC finished with the league’s third-best offense (118.3 rating).”
—““There’s an offensive end of the floor, too, you know?” Daigneault said. “We want to be dynamic over there. We want to be hard to play against over there. So the rebounding is a cost to the other things that we’re benefiting from. But by no means is that something that we’re, like, excited about. We don’t like seeing teams get 18 offensive rebounds.”That Daigneault quote is from January. But it might as well have been from Sunday night. The Pelicans bludgeoned the Thunder for 18 offensive rebounds on the glass. Valančiūnas had nine of those 18.”
—“The Thunder will remain vulnerable the rest of the playoffs to big offensive rebounding nights from opponents. They nearly lost in Game 1 after giving up three rebounds on one late fourth-quarter possession. But there are the unavoidable ones and the correctable errors. To go deep in the playoffs, they must limit the whiffed box-outs.”
Was on nba cj the other day and man i was not expecting to see a post of you there
I do sometimes wonder about if Westbrook was on this team in his prime. I think hes a bit too much of an engine for this car but I would have been thrilled to see him have this space his mvp season. Could you imagine?
DTD had some great stats this week. Thunder are 5-2 when giving up 18 or more offensive rebounds and 10-5 when giving up 16 or more. So…does rebounding matter? I’m not sold.
Plus, since the all-star break we are top 10 in DReb% so the narrative is a little old and tired.
Can we get enough stocks to offset the rebounding is the key.
It does matter, but it’ll only kill us at the highest of levels.
The goal is to identify someone to make us consistently passable on rebounding (I.e 10th-17th in the league from game to game) while not giving up and maybe even enhancing what we already do well.
Ous, take a swing on 1-2 players in the draft, and a potential move in the offseason should be our aim at helping out with this.
Okay so if we get bounced this year do we at least attempt to fix the problem? Or double down on it being a tradeoff we want.
7 comments
Some quotes from the article for those without a sub:
—“In January, *The Athletic* [published a piece](https://theathletic.com/5213190/2024/01/25/thunder-defense-nba-ranking/) on the Thunder’s top-five defense. They have the natural components for success — a bulldog stopper ([Luguentz Dort](https://theathletic.com/nba/player/luguentz-dort-2cv3o0nDeoH1AmCv/)), a disruptive deflector ([Shai Gilgeous-Alexander](https://theathletic.com/nba/player/shai-gilgeous-alexander-Ghni3y9TrL9rBSl5/), tied for the league lead with 150 steals), an elite rim protector ([Chet Holmgren](https://theathletic.com/nba/player/chet-holmgren-sbpm1Ty4vmeY5sa9/), second with 190 blocks) and a versatile guard-everyone wing ([Jalen Williams](https://theathletic.com/nba/player/jalen-williams-z2FafX0QarjHmDDy/)) who allows for lineup flexibility.”
—“This is a calculated gamble from Thunder general manager Sam Presti, the architect of the roster, and Daigneault, who deploys the smaller, thinner, quicker lineup combinations. They’ve prioritized spacing and skill over pure power. They want everyone on the floor to shoot, pass and dribble with instinct. That includes the center spot. If the five-man spaces, there’s more room for Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams to drive. OKC finished with the league’s third-best offense (118.3 rating).”
—““There’s an offensive end of the floor, too, you know?” Daigneault said. “We want to be dynamic over there. We want to be hard to play against over there. So the rebounding is a cost to the other things that we’re benefiting from. But by no means is that something that we’re, like, excited about. We don’t like seeing teams get 18 offensive rebounds.”That Daigneault quote is from January. But it might as well have been from Sunday night. The Pelicans bludgeoned the Thunder for 18 offensive rebounds on the glass. Valančiūnas had nine of those 18.”
—“The Thunder will remain vulnerable the rest of the playoffs to big offensive rebounding nights from opponents. They nearly lost in Game 1 after giving up three rebounds on one late fourth-quarter possession. But there are the unavoidable ones and the correctable errors. To go deep in the playoffs, they must limit the whiffed box-outs.”
Was on nba cj the other day and man i was not expecting to see a post of you there
I do sometimes wonder about if Westbrook was on this team in his prime. I think hes a bit too much of an engine for this car but I would have been thrilled to see him have this space his mvp season. Could you imagine?
DTD had some great stats this week. Thunder are 5-2 when giving up 18 or more offensive rebounds and 10-5 when giving up 16 or more. So…does rebounding matter? I’m not sold.
Plus, since the all-star break we are top 10 in DReb% so the narrative is a little old and tired.
Can we get enough stocks to offset the rebounding is the key.
It does matter, but it’ll only kill us at the highest of levels.
The goal is to identify someone to make us consistently passable on rebounding (I.e 10th-17th in the league from game to game) while not giving up and maybe even enhancing what we already do well.
Ous, take a swing on 1-2 players in the draft, and a potential move in the offseason should be our aim at helping out with this.
Okay so if we get bounced this year do we at least attempt to fix the problem? Or double down on it being a tradeoff we want.