"Every Halloween the trees are filled with underwear, every spring the toilets explode." This was Dean Wormer talking about the Beta's and their love of chaos. Beta is a qualitative measure of volatility in investments with higher Beta reflecting more risk. Beta is also used to describe the second brightest star in a constellation, an exploratory technology design, and an obsolete video player. All but one of these definitions nicely describe one of the two truly dynamic offensive players on our team. Rudy profits from creating chaos, and will take risks on defense to make this happen. He also benefits from more player and ball movement on the offensive end, which also entails risk, since each additional pass means one more possiblility of turnover.

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I apologize if this topic has been covered better previously, but I've only been following BEdge for a short time. This is my first post here, and I love the winking homerism of the site. However, I,m curious if I'm the only one concerned about this topic. Portland was the 25th best rebounding team in the league last year.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable1.html

Granted some of this is affected by pace of play (witness Seattle at #2) and rebound differential is probably a more important stat, to wit:

			RPG						BPG						SPG
	TEAM	GAMES		HME		OPP		DIFF
1	Cleveland	82		44.57		40.41		+4.15
2	Houston	82		44.64		40.67		+3.97
3	Boston	82		42.01		38.89		+3.12
4	Utah	82		40.87		37.80		+3.07
5	Dallas	82		43.00		40.25		+2.74
6	Philadelphia	82		41.91		39.22		+2.69
7	Detroit	82		41.42		39.13		+2.29
8	L.A. Lakers	82		44.14		42.79		+1.35
9	Atlanta	82		42.22		40.90		+1.31
10	New Orleans	82		41.84		40.82		+1.01
11	Milwaukee	82		41.68		40.68		+1.00
12	San Antonio	82		41.25		40.28		+0.97
13	Seattle	82		44.62		44.09		+0.52
14	Washington	82		41.59		41.19		+0.40
15	Chicago	82		43.02		42.63		+0.39
16	Orlando	82		42.01		41.69		+0.31
17	New Jersey	82		41.86		41.62		+0.24
18	New York	82		42.51		42.64		-0.13
19	Minnesota	82		41.36		41.65		-0.29
20	Portland	82		40.72		41.73		-1.01
21	Denver	82		44.09		45.39		-1.29
22	Toronto	82		40.07		41.62		-1.54
23	Sacramento	82		40.06		41.89		-1.82
24	Indiana	82		43.13		45.47		-2.34
25	Phoenix	82		41.50		43.89		-2.39
26	Memphis	82		41.64		44.54		-2.90
27	Charlotte	82		40.63		43.74		-3.11
28	L.A. Clippers	82		40.13		43.57		-3.43
29	Golden State	82		43.18		47.02		-3.84
30	Miami	82		37.62		43.08		-5.46

Diced this way we jump all the way up to number 20! Clearly rebounding was not a strong suit on this team last year. How many times did we watch the other team playing volleyball at the basket while cursing our lack of size/toughness. Its tempting to assume that the return of GO solves all problems in this regard, but does it? In order to get him on the floor we have to sit our best rebounder (Joel)  at 8.4 boards per game in 23.6 minutes (0.356 boards per minute). GO and Joel will not be on the floor much at the same time.

The top rebounders in the league average 13 to 14 boards a game in 35-38 minutes (Howard, Kaman, Camby). GO probably won't get these kind of minutes coming off microfracture surgery, but lets go ahead and project him at 12 boards a game in 30 minutes (0.40 boards per minute) which is ahead of D Howard's rate. Thus we get some traction on the rest of the league, but how much?

Here's my concern. Our starting PF is a very tanlented finesse guy who rebounds at an average to low rate (0.218 rpm) and our back-up PF is similar (0.261 rpm) although less talented. These rates will likely decrease as GO sucks up some of the available boards. Both our PF's are long and shoot it well, but don't naturally mix it up in the paint . I'm not concerned about this team's ability to score, but rebounding and defense is unproven. I'd like to see Portland as a top rebounding and defensive team to go along with the offensive potential.

If you look at past champs they are invariably strong rebounding or defensive teams or both. The spectacle of Boston kicking sand in the Lakers faces in last years finals illustrates this well. It seems that Channing's offseason goal has been to drop weight and deepen his range. Recently we were treated to a description of LMA's "And One" moves in scrimmages. I admire these guys drive to broaden their game, and don't think LMA will try to play like Chris Paul, but is this what we need?

Most teams in the league play a 3 post rotation with a natural center and 2 PF's sharing time. Mainly this is due to the scarcity of centers with adequate skills to be on the floor. Thus, these teams get by with a physical PF playing center some minutes. This to me seems like a desirable goal for Portland, i.e., acquiring a physical 4 to add to the rotation. While I think Channing has value as a 4 who can shoot, that value may be more elsewhere than here, since you can probably only afford to have one soft/finesse post player out of a 3 post rotation.

Long term (3  years on), I think we are well positioned offensively to contend. I see Joel falling back to a more limited role as GO emerges from microfracture hangover. I also see a main 3 post rotation with LMA, GO and an enforcer PF to be named later.

Thoughts?