How Can The Hornets Address Their Rebounding Issue?

The Hornets have been plagued by poor defensive rebounding since the Steve Clifford era, how feasible is it they make a major jump next season?

Following a loss to Denver in late March head coach James Borrego said post game “When we rebound, we’re a pretty good team. We can beat anybody”. Defensive rebounding, it’s not fun to watch, talk about or analyze but it’s an important factor when looking across the NBA for playoff contenders. How many times have we seen it this season where the team plays good defense, forces a bad shot only for the other team to come up with the offensive rebound and kick it to someone for an open three?

Over the past three seasons, Charlotte has ranked 25th, 23rd, and 30th in defensive rebounding percentage, according to Cleaning The Glass (CTG). In fact, if you were to look back over the past three seasons, Charlotte’s average opponent offensive rebound percentage is 24.7% which ranks 29th in the NBA over that span. The only team worse than Charlotte is the Houston Rockets who consciously gave up trying to rebound the ball when they pivoted to small ball trading away Clint Capela in February of 2020. The rebounding issue isn’t going to fix itself, it’s something GM Mitch Kupchak has flagged as an “area of need” at last season’s end of year press conference. This isn’t all on roster construction though, James Borrego and the players must continue to proactively try and resolve the issue internally.

Kupchak "We have to look to sure up our frontcourt with a centre or several centres... You would love to get some rim protection, better rebounding"

— James Plowright (@British_Buzz) May 20, 2021

The existential question Charlotte faces going forward is how do they resolve the rebounding issue while 4/5 out of their medium-term core are set with LaMelo, Rozier, Hayward, and Bridges (RFA)? The only real impact area Charlotte could make to significantly upgrade the rebounding is at center. Luckily, this is a position that normally specializes in this skill. Would adding a better quality big such as Jusuf Nurkic or Myles Turner be enough to lift the rest of the team up and put the defensive rebounding struggles behind them? It’s impossible to know, but what can we learn by looking back at recent history in the NBA? Finding evidence of other teams who have made significant jumps in defensive rebounding from one season to the next. I went through the last eight NBA seasons and tracked when NBA teams made a significant jump in their defensive rebounding and tried to discover what led to that improvement. I defined “significant” as improving by a minimum of 15 “places” in the league standings for opponent offensive rebounding % from one year to the next, below are my results:

In the past eight seasons, there have been 13 teams who’ve made a “significant” jump in their rebounding from one season to the next. An important feature I also tracked alongside rebounding is the team’s “transition frequency”. It’s easy for a team to do a good job in defensive rebounding if they sacrifice playing in transition. Take the Steve Clifford era in Charlotte as an example. The team rebounded well but ranked 25th in the NBA in transition frequency over his five seasons. Defensive rebounding and transition frequency are the NBA’s version of Yin and Yang, where opposite contrary forces interconnect, Charlotte must remain cognizant of that. Ever since LaMelo Ball was drafted to Charlotte, the team has put a focus on playing an uptempo style which has helped morph the Hornets into one of the most high-octane offenses in the NBA, something the team doesn’t want to lose or move away from. After completing my initial research, I decided to delve into the detail behind each of the 13 teams who improved their defensive rebounding and tried to identify the reason for improvement, the results are below.

As you can see, there were three key consistent themes that appeared which I decided to color categorized

1) X3 Blue – Few roster changes, same head coach, internal improvement by the players and coaches.

If Kupchak is planning to steadily improve this team without making significant moves, there is a chance the team could make a jump through the team’s own internal development. It is worth noting that both the Raptors and Clippers had big men Jonas Valanciunas and DeAndre Jordan who despite not making big statistical jumps in their own rebounding, gave both teams a strong starting point.

2) X4 Green - Addition or improvement of a key player(s).

The Hornets need to “trade for a center” has been the consensus among Hornets fans since the infamous Dwight Howard season. The evidence suggests the addition or development of a “big” can significantly impact a team’s defensive rebounding. Capela, Embiid, Giannis, Lopez, Gasol, Green, Randle, Vucevic, Adams, all had an impacts on the teams listed above.

3) X6 Orange - A Coaching change and implementation of a different system.

This was a surprise to me, surely every coach tells his team to hit the glass defensively. How can the voice giving the same message have such an impact? It’s unclear in a couple of scenarios such as the 2020 Pelicans and Hawks if the improvement was down to the coaching change or center additions of Capela/Adams. For the Hawks, they were 18th in opponent offensive rebound percentage until McMillan took over midway through the season where they finished 8th, so I gave that nod to coaching. For the Pelicans, it is well-known that previously mentioned Steve Clifford is from the Stan Van Gundy tree and has similar philosophical focus on sacrificing transition frequency (24th) to secure boards.

After reviewing past seasons I think you can look at the actions required to improve Charlotte’s defensive rebounding in three stages. The first stage is hoping that through internal development and improvement the team makes a jump. Many probably already feel that time is up for this stage as we are coming to the end of year three for Borrego. However, it’s also fair to argue the Hornets are the 4th youngest team in the NBA with a lot of players still yet to reach their physical peak in terms of strength which is a key factor in rebounding. Is it fair to judge at this stage? Maybe. Borrego can play Taurean Prince’s monologue explaining the key to out-rebounding on repeat in the video room to FINALLY make it stick.

The second stage is acquiring a tried and tested center who can rebound at a high level. However, that center will also need to be able to play in dribble handoff and ball screen action while also protecting the rim at the same time. Finding someone who can block shots, pass/handle and rebound at a good level is a lot more difficult than you might think. Could Borrego knit together a better rebounding team with a starting calibre NBA big such as Turner or Nurkic? In my opinion, he has to be given the opportunity to implement his system with a player of this caliber at some point. Currently, it’s a tossup between Mason Plumlee or Montrezl Harrell on the best big he’s coached in three seasons, judging anyone on that is unfair. If both the first and second stages fail to resolve the rebounding problem and Charlotte isn’t progressing in other areas enough to offset the consistent black spot of rebounding, the third option the team could turn to is changing the coach.

There’s no doubt from the research that changing a coach seems to be the most effective way to create real, impactful change. However, with flawed rosters it can sometimes be a game of whack a mole. As soon as you think you’ve resolved one, another pops up elsewhere. For now, Borrego has earned the right to be given the tools and chance to succeed. If he is but is unsuccessful then it is the time to consider a change.

You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us Twitter:

Facebook - All Hornets

Twitter - @SI_Hornets and James Plowright @British_Buzz