SPORTS STATISTICS

I can't stand sitting around listening to a bunch of guys argue about sports. They usually lace their arguments with worthless sports stats, most of them dug up while checking their Fantasy Sports League team. Well, ESPN has finally managed to get a regular contributor with at least some idea about sports statistics:

Care to guess who's having one of the best rebounding seasons in history?

Your first instinct might be to say Kevin Garnett, who's running away with the rebounding title. He's averaging 13.7 boards a game, which is nearly two more than his closest competitor. Considering his sizable lead, it seems heretical to suggest somebody else is the league's best rebounder. But it's true. Though hardly a household name, the Seattle SuperSonics' Reggie Evans is putting Garnett to shame with his rebounding exploits.

How did I arrive at this conclusion? It all starts with a simple premise: A player can't get a rebound unless somebody misses a shot. Following from that logic, the best way to rate rebounders is by the percentage of missed shots they reel in, not by the amount they pull down per game or even per minute.

Player A gets 10 rebounds in a game with 20 missed shots, while Player B nabs 20 in a game with 100 missed shots. Player B has twice as many rebounds, but is he really better? Player A grabbed a Herculean 50 percent of all the missed shots in his game, while Player B took in only 20 percent. We shouldn't hold it against Player A that there were so few missed shots for him to rebound.

This is where my tool called Rebound Rate comes in. By measuring the percentage of available rebounds that a player gets while he's on the floor, Rebound Rate makes Player A's superiority obvious.

To calculate a player's Rebound Rate, start by adding all the rebounds and opponents' rebounds in his team's games. Multiply that result by the percentage of the team's minutes that player has played. This gives you the approximate number of rebounds available while he was on the court. Finally, take his total rebounds, divide it by the available rebounds, and multiply by 100.

And there you have it -- a player's Rebound Rate.

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