Addressing the hole at center

[Clum-Z]

My statement that he is overpaid now was hyperbole in an effort to be clever in saying that TT is basically slightly above a replacement level player. I think a lot of players in the league would have put up the same numbers and would not have looked like a robot programmed to play basketball doing it. Overpaid in the sense that many who are making less money could do it, not in the sense that he is not being paid his market value. I understand why people would not have read it as I intended and apologize.

And of course he had decent numbers, there was no one else in Tristian's place to take his points or rebounds away especially since Varajao was hurt for half the season... If you were to put in any powerforward in the nba for 30+ minutes per game on a team that had basically one scorer they'd be able to post similar numbers.

 

[Randolphkeys]

Well you can look back and say that Kenneth Faried, Tobias Harris, and Terrance Jones make well under 2 mill each and have the same if not better production as Tristian, And to be honest I'd much rather have any of those three.

Talking about big men on rookie deals and after the rookie deals run out is apples to oranges, which is why Thompson can be slightly disappointing as a 4th year player and still be a good deal but after this season cause Griffin irritable bowels.

Yeah bottom of the first round bigs who outperform their draft slot are a great deal. The key is being the lucky playoff team to pull it off.

 

[Tornicade]

Tristan hasnt been offered an extension. This would indicate that Griffin is already wary of what contract to offer.
It also clearly shows this a season for assessment for Thompson who has been being developed and intentionally put in roles that did not benefit his skill set but helped widened it.

this is a matter that will be settled where it should e. on the court .

 

[Jack Brickman]

My statement that he is overpaid now was hyperbole in an effort to be clever in saying that TT is basically slightly above a replacement level player. I think a lot of players in the league would have put up the same numbers and would not have looked like a robot programmed to play basketball doing it. Overpaid in the sense that many who are making less money could do it, not in the sense that he is not being paid his market value. I understand why people would not have read it as I intended and apologize.

I'm not a huge Thompson fan, but he's significantly better than a replacement level player. He's one of the best rebounders in the league. He's going to get overpaid next summer, but right now he's on a nice bargain deal at four million.

There aren't a lot of bigs making less than him that are better, or even comparable, really. If you think otherwise, give us a list of the guys you think are better and on cheaper deals.

 

[Douglar]

I'm not a huge Thompson fan, but he's significantly better than a replacement level player. He's one of the best rebounders in the league.

I completely agree with better than "replacement level". I might even go as far as to say that Thompson is close to being a "solid NBA starter". But I can't agree with "one of the best rebounders in the league"

I looked up players by rebound rate that played more than 500 minutes last season. http://bkref.com/tiny/1IUz7

Thompson comes in at #44 in the league with an RBR of 16.3. That's decent, and it's good enough to be better that guys like Zeller and Bennett, but Thompson was closer to those two weak rebounders than he was the strong rebounders like Love and Varejao.

#9 Anderson Varejao 19.6
#18 Kevin Love 18.7
#44 Tristan Thompson 16.3
#63 Tyler Zeller 15.1
#91 Anthony Bennett 13.1


Here are the top 8 in the league. RBR >= 20.0 will always put you in the best of the league.
#1 Andre Drummond 22.3
#2 Omer Asik 21.7
#3 DeAndre Jordan 21.6
#4 Reggie Evans 21.5
#5 Andrew Bogut 20.7
#6 DeMarcus Cousins 20.4
#7 Dwight Howard 20.1
#8 Gorgui Dieng 20.0

 

[NasstyNate]

I'm not a huge Thompson fan, but he's significantly better than a replacement level player. He's one of the best rebounders in the league. He's going to get overpaid next summer, but right now he's on a nice bargain deal at four million.

There aren't a lot of bigs making less than him that are better, or even comparable, really. If you think otherwise, give us a list of the guys you think are better and on cheaper deals.

He is not one of the best rebounders in the league. Not even close. He gets disproportionately more offensive rebounds because nobody pays attention to him and defensive because he plays so many minutes. Taking out the single digit game outliers, he is 56th in the league in rebounding percentage. Again, my point is his total and per game numbers are inflated because he plays more minutes than his talent suggests he should.

Sure. Players making less that I would rather have for various reasons - Reggie Evans, Sullinger, Hawes, Ed Davis, Morris twins, Plumlee, Jonas, Mirotic, Terrence Jones, Dieng, and Vucevic. This is a hamstrung exercise because structured rookie deals artificially under and over pay players. The real answer will come after he signs near the market value of his numbers in a vacuum would suggest. As demonstrated previously, the market is skewed in favor of bigs. At that point, the list will be much longer.

Edit after reading Douglar's post - well done. Didn't know you could sort by minutes played.

 

[*L-Train*]

how about Vitor Faverani? he's having knee surgery right now and will be out 6-8 weeks. reportedly the Celtics are thinking about waiving him (apparently they would like to keep Powell and that makes it tough to keep Faverani). he didn't play a ton last year but put up solid numbers in limited time (his 45.3% Opp FG% at the Rim is also very good). i wouldn't mind giving him a non-guaranteed contract and see if he recovers


http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....ni/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

 

[AuxiliaryPie]

Thabeet was just waived by the Pistons.

 

[stowfan]

Thabeet was just waived by the Pistons.

Timberwolves waive C Fesenko

 

[Walter White]

Andy be like
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyD8By3458A

 

[Cavatt]

I completely agree with better than "replacement level". I might even go as far as to say that Thompson is close to being a "solid NBA starter". But I can't agree with "one of the best rebounders in the league"

I looked up players by rebound rate that played more than 500 minutes last season. http://bkref.com/tiny/1IUz7

Thompson comes in at #44 in the league with an RBR of 16.3. That's decent, and it's good enough to be better that guys like Zeller and Bennett, but Thompson was closer to those two weak rebounders than he was the strong rebounders like Love and Varejao.

#9 Anderson Varejao 19.6
#18 Kevin Love 18.7
#44 Tristan Thompson 16.3
#63 Tyler Zeller 15.1
#91 Anthony Bennett 13.1


Here are the top 8 in the league. RBR >= 20.0 will always put you in the best of the league.
#1 Andre Drummond 22.3
#2 Omer Asik 21.7
#3 DeAndre Jordan 21.6
#4 Reggie Evans 21.5
#5 Andrew Bogut 20.7
#6 DeMarcus Cousins 20.4
#7 Dwight Howard 20.1
#8 Gorgui Dieng 20.0

Rebounding rate is not affected by playing with other good rebounders?

People have put up other measures that say he is really good, and when I watch I see him pull down rebounds in a crowd and taking them away from Noah and Gibson like tonight, I just "say he does this every night." Rebounding was a rare strength for us last year and he was part of that.

 

[Douglar]

Rebounding rate is not affected by playing with other good rebounders?

I was probably too hard on Tristan. He's certainly good rebounder, and he's a better offensive rebounder than defensive rebounder at this point in his career. Historically he hasn't been in the same level and Love and Varejao, but not many active players are.

I read a study on team rebounding a little bit ago. Here's what I remember.

About 70% of the time, the defenders get the ball, probably because defenders find themselves between the offensive player and the hoop when the shots go up more often.

Adding more rebounding talent has a noticeable effect on the offensive end. The author concluded that since offensive rebounds happen less often, extra rebounds are usually grabbed away from defenders, and the teams overall offensive rebounding improves. There is some evidence for competition from player on the same squad, but it isn't that high.

For defensive rebounding, additional talent grabs additional rebounds, but it isn't as helpful for the team. There was a lot of evidence that there was competition on the same team. The idea was that since 70% of the additional rebounds are rebounds that their team mates would have grabbed anyway.

The overall article jumped off to the conclusion that a certain amount of defensive rebounds are easy boards for the defending team, and that most NBA quality players should be able to get their share of defensive with reasonable technique, size and effort, but offensive rebounding levels are much more sensitive to skill, since there are fewer "gimme" boards available for a team.
​

Now things are certainly more complicated for a single player in a specific game or coaching system. Centers tend to be in position to get more rebounds than guards. Some opponents are stronger rebounders. A team can game plan against a particular rebounder. A team can have players focus on blocking out for team mates instead of focusing on rebounding on their own. Coaches can have players leak out and forget about rebounding to try to gain an advantage on early offense or defense. Do long shots make long rebounds? Lots of stuff can affect a team rebounding in addition to player skill.

And adding additional rebounding talent can have other benefits that don't show up in the team rebound rate, since having 3 really good rebounders might make it easier for the coach to let players leak out, or it may make it harder for opponents to game plan against a single strong rebounder.

Whatever the case, the Cavs have a lot of rebounding talent. Maybe even an unfair amount of rebounding talent. It will be very interesting to watch how that aspect of the team affects the outcomes of the games.

 

[Cavatt]

Last night was a great test against a tough front court. Cavs still beat the bulls in the rebounding game. It looked to me like Noah and Gibson both got very frustrated. Gasol looked good, but didn't have as much impact as they hoped.

I think with TT coming on strong right now and Andy liking like he did when he was the best player on the team, we have a solid front court with some situational backups.

 

[Kypus]

Timberwolves waive C Fesenko

It wouldn't surprise me if the Cavs have Fes on their short list. Compared to Kirk: better footwork (although slow to get to spots outside a 6-foot area), more NBA-ready (coached by Jerry Sloan), more aggressive defender (which is what we need), but I don't know if he has a 10-12 foot jumper like Kirk.

Idk where I'm going with this, just throwing crap against the wall. No super clear-cut advantages between him, Kirk and Haywood.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_1iENBhrAg


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWvsRDoCgW4


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnJEjfliV4

 

[Douglar]

I was very interested in Fesenko for a long time, and if Haywood wasn't on the roster, I could see the Cavs taking a flier on the guy for short term needs, but ......

I think his NBA time might be over. His basketball limitations & personality seem pretty well known and set in stone. Seems like he's got a ceiling on his game for a while, he's not breaking through it any time soon, he doesn't have a rep as a hard worker, and he's not clearly better than Haywood.

Alex Kirk is probably a stiff and out of the league like most undrafted rookies, but there is still a bit unknown about the guy and the Cavs look like they want to investigate Kirk further. I think they know Fes pretty well from his time in Canton.

But I'll always love this picture: