I also think that the notion that he’s been asked to take on a more complex role could be used to explain any perceived shortcoming whatsoever, and frankly, I’m not terribly impressed by that explanation. One might as well say, “The coaching staff moves in mysterious ways.” It could be true, but it could also be that he’s just not that great a rebounder, and there’s no way short of a conversation with the coaching staff to determine which it is.

Under those circumstances, my modus operandi is to take things at face value. If I see a situation where if Pau hustles for a defensive board, we stop a second chance bucket, but in fact they score an easy lay-up, and I see that time and again, then I’m going to interpret that as he’s just not that keyed into getting rebounds, and I’d like him to be more keyed in. If you don’t think that’s something he needs to do (let’s say, because Bynum is on his way back and will fill that gap soon enough), I’m OK with agreeing to disagree. But I don’t think speculating about complex plans on the part of the coaching staff is fruitful.

In any case, I think we’ve just about beaten this horse dead. I promise I won’t have anything more to say about this–at least, not on this thread. (I’ll still read anything you have to say, of course.)

I teach statistics, but I don’t find many valid applications. I mostly see it misused in basketball analyses, often because analysts wish to assume independence of variables such as rebounding expressed in various ways. I see it in a Bayesian manner, with loads of poorly defined or undefined conditiional probabilities. I pointed out some instances in which simple “independence” assumptions are challenged by facts on the ground.

Both from observations and comments, there is little doubt that Pau often shows little focus on rebounding. Should he choose to make rebounding an emphasis and “bulk up,” I expect that he would get more rebounds if that were asked of him. You are still making the assumption that Pau should emphasize rebounding more in his skill set, so you are ready to change his focus. I’m not about to get into that.

I think that he has been asked to take on a more complex role.

My background in probability and statistics, besides being a Laker fan. I’m not trying to pull rank so much as to say that as such, I tend to be pretty conservative in making conclusions from small samples–positive or negative. The stats from last night’s game didn’t show me that Pau rebounds poorly any more than it showed me that he rebounds well. I’m not making any judgments from the statistics–what I’m explicitly doing is not making judgments from them.

As it happens, I do think Pau could improve his rebounding; I just don’t think that specifically because of the statistics. It’s currently not as strong as his offense. I think his activity in the games since he’s joined the Lakers substantiates that. When I watch him position himself for rebounds, he reminds me of last year’s Bynum: He lets his long arms and athleticism do the work for him. I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest that he could improve on that.

And in my opinion, a positive statement regarding a player–whether it’s Pau, Kobe, Lamar, or whoever–is every bit as much a judgment, if you want to call it that, as a negative statement. We’re mostly Laker fans here, and I understand that people like to stick up for our players, so we like positive judgments better than negative ones. But there’s room for reasoned disagreement here without calling people’s opinions “simplistic.” Take my comments in the context that I’m overwhelmingly pro-Pau, and I’d be pro-Pau even if we hadn’t just gotten out from under two-and-a-half years of Second Coming of Samaki Walker, Only More So.

Riley hardly restricted the growth of young stars like Magic, Worthy, & Zo in the past. Likewise, i don’t see how you can say he is currently restricting D-Wade with his ‘system’, considering how much lets Wade freelance on offense and defense.

I’m sure nagging injuries and poor teammates are playing a sizable part, but the bottom line is that D-Wade is just not playing that hard right now. That’s on him, not Riley.

Rebounding is a team effort on the Lakers based upon assignments. We don’t always know what those assignments are.

You seem to want to make judgements of rebounding skill making your own subjective assessments of assignments–supposing that all players are tasked equally to rebound the same way in every game.

When Farmar outrebounds Bynum, you scratch your head. When four players all get the same number of rebounds, you talk about luck, or “every dog has his day.”

Maybe your attribution of “rebound skill” is too simplistic?

Note: Ronny was called for two pathetic fouls that should’ve been counted as blocks. Refs are stat killers.

That Lamar-to-Pau-to-Kobe-to-Luke-to-Lamar-to-net break made me so happy I have a DVR with an instant replay button. It reminded me of a Cedric Ceballos no-look pass as he was falling out of bounds on a similar fast break, but that one couldn’t hold a light to this one. Lots of fun.

I don’t think Dwyane Wade hates Kobe as much as he hates his own situation. I hate his situation, too. It would be a lot more fun to kick the Heat over the curb if they were any good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJjUpbTgf2w

I’ve been watching this for a while now =)