This might just be a fluke on my team in the recently completed Allen season but I figured I'd throw this out to the masses since I'm not sure what to make of it.

I was really disappointed with the rebounding numbers of my small forward, Arnold Johnson.  He's by no means amazing, but a D3 player with 58 ATH, 71 SPD, 50 REB is pretty solid for a small forward.  In fact, it's better than almost all other teams.  But he wasn't exactly a rebounding machine.  He averaged 2.8 boards in 20.3 minutes a game.  And just 1.8 on the defensive end.

My starting point guard has terrible numbers (42 ATH, 52 SPD, 12 RBD) and averaged 2.0 boards in 22.5 minutes, 1.3 on the defensive end.

My starting shooting guard has a rebound rating of 1 but even he pulled down 1.3 rebounds a game, 1.0 defensive.  (He did have exceptional ATH of 75 and SPD of 93.)

When my small forward is playing on the baseline in a 2-3 zone, he barely rebounds more than my guards.

Those numbers surprise me.  But since nobody plays zone anymore, I really don't have other teams to compare him.

I did go through the top 50 RPI and found the six other teams that run zone and took a look at those teams starting forwards.  It's a sample size of a whopping seven players but my guy has everybody crushed in ratings.  There was one player that averaged 3.2 defensive boards in 25.9 minutes a game, but another at 2.4 in 24.9 minutes, but the others were between 1.6 and 1.9 defensive boards per game.  I tried to do some silly math to compare the players but it didn't do a lot of good.  By the time I tried to neutralize tempo and determine defensive rebounding percentages, the math was already poor.  And that ignores the impact of teammates.  Oh -- and again, my sample size is seven players.

So I'm throwing this question out to you guys.  How effective can a small forward be at rebounding in a zone?

To perhaps put this into some context, I'll ask a follow up question.  I have been planning on Michael Miller www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=1685482 being my starting small forward next season.  He will have the second highest rebound rating on my team.  Would I be completely wasting his rebounding skills using him as a small forward? 

The reason he didn't get that many defensive rebounds is because his defensive rating is so low.  Although many people don't take it into account, defense plays a big part in rebounding.

http://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Stats.aspx?tid=12357&pid=1670947.  He'd probably be getting more at a post position, but he's not doing too badly and I certainly wouldn't say his rebounding talent is wasted...  Incidentally, if you or anyone else can tell me why he's shooting so poorly this season I'd love to know.

tkimble - Are you sure about this?  I haven't seen any evidence that the defense rating impacts defensive rebounding.  Maybe IRL it does, but I haven't seen it in the game...

	Name	Pos	Seasons	GP	Min	Pts	Reb	Ast	Blk	Stl	FG%	3Pt%	FT%
4.	Ryan Tooley	SF	47-50	125	3075	1351	688	153	60	91	44.7	31.7	72.4

Name	Yr.	Pos.	A	SPD	REB	DE	BLK	LP	PE	BH	P	WE	ST	DU	FT	TOT
Ryan Tooley	Sr.	SF	67	47	72	47	45	44	52	24	46	79	97	78	B-	698

That's 5.5 rpg over his career, with an average of 6.6 rpg as a senior. During his senior season, he had the 3rd highest Reb rating on the team. He played almost exclusively SF, perhaps picking up only a handful of minutes at PF (he was listed as 4th string/emergency PF). The team played mostly 2-3 zone, with maybe a few games in a 3-2.

This one played just a bit of backup PF, but probably 95%+ of his minutes came as an SF...

Posted by tkimble on 1/19/2011 7:29:00 PM (view original):
The reason he didn't get that many defensive rebounds is because his defensive rating is so low.  Although many people don't take it into account, defense plays a big part in rebounding.

I'm pretty sure this is not true at all. I've never seen any correlation to poor D rating influencing rebounding.

For example, look at this guy on a sim AI who also has crappy ath/sp ratings to go with his awful D rating and he's getting 6.3 rebounds per game in 17.5 mpg. http://whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Stats.aspx?tid=3120&pid=1713272

I really don't know what the answer is to get SFs to rebound, I just get as good of rebounders as I can. I currently have a guy that last season with a high 30reb rating with low to mid 60s in both ath/sp got just over 3 boards a game while my 1 reb PG got 1 a game. I had a 70+ reb rated SF on that same team a few seasons ago and he got close to 6 boards a game.

I think it's slightly  a problem with zone defense. 

The larger problem is with how rebounding works with guards in the engine.  In actual basketball, you will regularly see games where guards end up being leading rebounders, but you'll rarely/never see it in HD.

Posted by grantduck on 1/20/2011 4:51:00 AM (view original):
I think it's slightly  a problem with zone defense. 

The larger problem is with how rebounding works with guards in the engine.  In actual basketball, you will regularly see games where guards end up being leading rebounders, but you'll rarely/never see it in HD.

pretty sure grantduck is one of those former guards who prided himself on rebounding

i dont think defense impacts rebounding, at all, and i would be pretty (extremely?) surprised if it did.

to the OP, i don't know what to tell you. sf rebounding does seem to be a bit messed up in general in this game. all in all, my opinion is, if you are going to play a big at the 3, hopefully you are playing zone. i feel that is where it is most useful to do so. but i am really not very confident on that. but in general i felt like rebounding at the 3 was pretty useful in the zone. so maybe your example here is a bit of a freak occurrence? or maybe i am totally wrong. seems like it could go either way. but i wouldn't give up on it if i were you if this is the first time you are having a problem with it.

Posted by tkimble on 1/19/2011 7:29:00 PM (view original):
The reason he didn't get that many defensive rebounds is because his defensive rating is so low.  Although many people don't take it into account, defense plays a big part in rebounding.

Sorry tkimble, that is not correct at all.

The bigger picture is that rebounding is not working as it should be in this engine, not just for zone.

I really haven't had any trouble with the rebounding I've seen recently.  Right after the update it appeared completely random, but it's seemed much more reasonable lately...  Perhaps since the much-debated update to bring everything to its mean value....

Posted by girt25 on 1/20/2011 2:50:00 PM (view original):
The bigger picture is that rebounding is not working as it should be in this engine, not just for zone.

I hear this sentiment a lot, but always as a simple conclusion. Has anyone done actual analysis (not - "look at this game, I should not have been outrebounded)?

Thanks for the input guys.

I hadn't heard anything regarding defense impacting rebounds so I didn't post it.  I'm also thinking it doesn't, although if somebody has a recent support ticket that would indicate it does, I'd love to see it posted.

For those of you that posted examples, any chance you'd be willing to confirm they played in the new engine.  I'm guessing that zbrent's did but I don't know about dahsdebater's examples.  If it is the old engine, I think it's apples to oranges.  I used to take good advantage of SF rebounding in the old engine but it doesn't seem to work now.

And I get the bigger picture that rebounding is not working as it should.

But am I crazy in thinking that in a WIS 2-3 zone that the SF and PF should be interchangable?  I know in real life it would make a difference but if it does make a difference in the sim, I have to admit to ignorance in understanding why.