Hopfully Dampier starts to become a double double guy soon..

[Steve13]

He is averaging just 11 and 6 so far, he has made an impact by just being in the paint but it would be nice if he starts rebounding the ball better. Maybe it's due to the system but I want him to prove the haters wrong

[Jamisonite]

i think he is proving the haters wrong. Theres more to what he has done then what can be read on a stat sheet. The man has made it easier for everyone else on the defensive end of the floor. There have also been multiple times that i have seen him fight for the rebound and because of his effort he ends up tipping it into the hands of another mav.

[Misfit Mav]

I think its more important that we out-rebound our opponents as a team than it is for Damp to get 10 per game. If we do that, I think it will be a better measure of Damp's value. Right now we are behind our opponents in total boards because of the New Orleans game.

[Murphy3]

the mavs are two games in.....

[DubOverdose]

All I care about are the W's right now. Sure I'd love for a few players to put up amazing stats, but not if it sacrifices a W.

[Blonde Bomber]

Originally posted by: DubOverdose
All I care about are the W's right now. Sure I'd love for a few players to put up amazing stats, but not if it sacrifices a W.

bingo!!!

noone should be complaining or demanding anything when were racking up wins.

[LRB]

If Damp was averaging a 20pts and 15 rebs it sure as hell would be way too early after 2 games to proclaim him a huge success. Likewise it's way too early to be concerned about his numbers after just 2 games. The most important thing is that we's won both games so far and I'd trade that any day over a couple of double doubles for Damp and a loss or two. If we go the whole season undefeated and Damp only averages 2/2 I'll proclaim him the greatest of steals ever. Of course I don't see either one happening.

[Nash13]

Anybody who thought Dampier was going to be averaging a double double is kidding themselves. When you're on a team with athletic guards like Harris/Terry/Finley/Daniels/Howard/Stackhouse, and a defensive rebounding machine in Dirk, it is unlikely that even Bill Russell himself could average double digits in rebounds. Stackhouse said it himself that in order for teams to win, you have to put personal stats aside for the good of the team. Besides, i liked the offseason signing of Dampier because of his defense, not stats.

[grndmstr_c]

Anybody who thought Dampier was going to be averaging a double double is kidding themselves. When you're on a team with athletic guards like Harris/Terry/Finley/Daniels/Howard/Stackhouse, and a defensive rebounding machine in Dirk, it is unlikely that even Bill Russell himself could average double digits in rebounds. Stackhouse said it himself that in order for teams to win, you have to put personal stats aside for the good of the team. Besides, i liked the offseason signing of Dampier because of his defense, not stats.

Okay, lets calm down just a little bit. The only one of our guards/SF's who's enough above average as a rebounder to be worth commenting on is Josh, and while Dirk's a fine defensive rebounder, he certainly leaves plenty of room for other guys to rack up plenty of offensive rebounds. Damp has not rebounded like he's capable of or like we need him to thus far, and partly as a result of that the Mavs have not done well on the boards in their first two games (though he's far from being the only culprit). If the team's going to get up to snuff on the boards, and it needs to if the winning streak is to continue, it will probably require that he get his rebounding totals up close to double digits if he stays in the 30+ mpg range.

[bgantz]

at least he doesn't get posterized by chris anderson

[LRB]

Antoine Walker average 8.3 rebounds per game in 34.6 minutes with a better set of rebounding 2/3's than we have this year. I don't see why Damp, who is a much better, taller, and bigger rebounder can't average 9+ on a weaker rebounding mavs team while playing closer to the basket if he gets anywhere near as much minutes as Walker. Certainly a double double is very feasable. I don't think that Damp has to have 10+ rebounds to be successful. However I would like to see him have mintues per rebound to be under 4 and ideally much closer to 3. But I'm willing to give him a few games to come up to speed with this team.

[grndmstr_c]

at least he doesn't get posterized by chris anderson

Too bad the Mavs weren't +28 for the 16 minutes he was on the floor.

[DubOverdose]

The Mavs haven't been missing enough shots for Dampier to gather in all the rebounds he did last season.

[grndmstr_c]

It's not just the raw rebounding numbers, and it's not just our field goal accuracy reducing offensive rebounding opportunities. Our first two games we've been subpar on both the offensive and defensive glass by the percentages. As the team's anchor in the middle some of the responsibility for that has to fall on Damp's shoulders, though I'm very confident he'll get it righted. Incidentally, the other primary culprits look to be Devin, JT, and to a lesser extent Josh. Between the 3 of them they've grabbed a of total of 10 rebounds in 138 combined minutes. Dirk's boardwork was a bit subpar last night as well.

[LRB]

one of the problems that I see with rebounding, at least on our defensive end, so far is too many guys taking off on the fast break before seeing that we've grabbed the defensive board. This allows their man to come in clean and crash the board. I love the fast break, but we have to make sure we get the defensive rebound or there will be no break opportunity.

[Bayliss]

Rebounding is a highly overrated statistic.

FG% is a much better factor for a team. Dallas keeps winning that battle and holding teams to poor shooting, they will very frequently.

[Nash13]

Okay, lets calm down just a little bit. The only one of our guards/SF's who's enough above average as a rebounder to be worth commenting on is Josh, and while Dirk's a fine defensive rebounder, he certainly leaves plenty of room for other guys to rack up plenty of offensive rebounds. Damp has not rebounded like he's capable of or like we need him to thus far, and partly as a result of that the Mavs have not done well on the boards in their first two games (though he's far from being the only culprit). If the team's going to get up to snuff on the boards, and it needs to if the winning streak is to continue, it will probably require that he get his rebounding totals up close to double digits if he stays in the 30+ mpg range.

My point with the guards is someone's always going to be getting rebound. And his rebounding isn't nearly important as his defense. Dampier doesn't need to step up on rebounding, the team does.

[grndmstr_c]

Rebounding is a highly overrated statistic.

I thought you were smarter than that.

[grndmstr_c]

My point with the guards is someone's always going to be getting rebound. And his rebounding isn't nearly important as his defense. Dampier doesn't need to step up on rebounding, the team does.

Yeah, someone's always going to be getting the rebound. Unfortunately that someone has been wearing an opponent's jersey far too often over the first two games. And you're blind if you think Dampier doesn't need to step up his rebounding. Take two minutes to look over the stats and it's pretty much impossible to miss.

[Bayliss]

I thought you were smarter than that.

And last year the Mavs were a great rebounding team. It didn't get them too far.

FG% is a much better indicator and the more important statistic. There is a reason why Avery Johnson is stressing it. You hold teams to 40% shooting and them getting roughly 7 more rebounds will matter very little.

Because 5% swing in FG is anywhere from 5-10 points. 7 rebounds does not impact the scoreboard that much, because they still have to shoot the ball once they obtain the rebound.

[LRB]

Because 5% swing in FG is anywhere from 5-10 points. 7 rebounds does not impact the scoreboard that much, because they still have to shoot the ball once they obtain the rebound.

Give a team enough shots and eventually they will score no matter how badly they shoot. Defending well and allowing the other team to grab the defensive board to try again is an exercise in futility. We have to be better at controling our defensive backboards.

[Bayliss]

Give a team enough shots and eventually they will score no matter how badly they shoot.

True, the rebounding isn't a major concern right now. Rebounding will come through familiarity on rotations. The Mavs have several capable rebounders. Keeping the opponent's FG% in check is the major concern.

[kg_veteran]

I guess people have to find something to complain about.

[grndmstr_c]

7 rebounds does not impact the scoreboard that much, because they still have to shoot the ball once they obtain the rebound.

The top rebounding team in the league last year grabbed about 53% of available rebounds as compared to around 47% for the worst rebounding team. Everything else being equal, we can expect that sort of differential between two teams to work out to at least a 5.5 point differential in the final score, perhaps up to 6.5 or 7 points depending on how efficient an average team is at converting offensive rebounds. If we regress winning percentage on point differential from last year's final standings a six point differential (which is a fair esitmate IMO) is worth about 17 wins over the course of an 82 game season. Now that's with a difference of 5.5 rebounds a game, and you want to try and tell me that 7 rebounds does not impact the scoreboard that much? Sorry, but you're way off.

[grndmstr_c]

I guess people have to find something to complain about.

You know, the annoying thing is that I really didn't intend to complain. I feel good about the team's (and Damp's) rebounding potential and I think they'll get it together, and I couldn't be happier about being 2-0. I'm just having a hard time with the inability/unwillingness of some people to recognize the weaknesses that obviously exist at this stage in the team's development.

[The Miles]

I couldn't be happier with Dampier. The oop set a tone to this season IMO, it got the Mavs up and going quick. For that I am grateful. He just needs to keep banging around and the rebounds will come.

[sike]

his presence has been a huge inpact for this team...I have to believe that the stats will come around.....

[mercury_rev]

It's only been two games and I haven't been able to watch either, but it's just nice to see play-by-play summaries that don't show Mavs' opponents going into extended layup drills. I'm sure Dampier (and of course Bradley) have helped prevent some of that and will continue to do so IF NELLIE STAYS WITH THEM.

[EricaLubarsky]

I've seen three games straight and when Dampier is on, the entire team is an elite team. He makes that much of a difference. He also dissapeared for a few minutes in each game. We have a 60% on guy in Damp it seems and we already had the ultimate 40% guy in Bradley.

[orangedays]

I like Erica's wording on that. Damp really does have the impact of turning us into an elite team...all of us Mavs fans knew that it would be true before the season started. Now we're just shoving it down the throats of all the haters out there.

[Poindexter Einstein]

GC ... your correlation of Reb % differential is interesting, but if you are hypothesizing that the Mavs have given away 6-7 ppg as a result, then you have to take that to an even more amazing stat.

Add back in the 6-7, and the Mavs beat Sac by 16 and NO by 22.

The fact that they have essentially won wire-to-wire in two opening games, while still trying to get acclimated to each other, is far more meaningful to dwell on than reb differential, IMO.

[grndmstr_c]

PE, as I said above, I wouldn't be dwelling, as you call it, if others weren't ignoring. And as impressive as the quick start is given the circumstances of the offseason and preseason, I don't think anyone would argue that the Mavs are going to average 51.6% field goal shooting, including 45.7% from three, for the entire season. The Mavs are riding a hot streak right now, but it won't last forever. The one area where there's clear room for improvement, and therefore the area that will have to be improved if the team is to survive the inevitalbe scoring lulls, is rebounding.

[Poindexter Einstein]

[Bayliss]

The top rebounding team in the league last year grabbed about 53% of available rebounds as compared to around 47% for the worst rebounding team. Everything else being equal, we can expect that sort of differential between two teams to work out to at least a 5.5 point differential in the final score, perhaps up to 6.5 or 7 points depending on how efficient an average team is at converting offensive rebounds. If we regress winning percentage on point differential from last year's final standings a six point differential (which is a fair esitmate IMO) is worth about 17 wins over the course of an 82 game season. Now that's with a difference of 5.5 rebounds a game, and you want to try and tell me that 7 rebounds does not impact the scoreboard that much? Sorry, but you're way off.

But back to my original point. FG% is more important. And if the Mavs keep holding teams to a low FG%, the rebounding will not that important ecause on most games it will work itself out.

(Btw, Dallas was tied in rebounding with the Kings two nights ago. So there rebounding was off in only only 1 game.)

[stuportremens]

Double doubles are entirely dependend on the decimal system. You need to adjust that, if necessary.
I mean, we could also use hex numbers, couldn't we. That would stop the double doubles.
And if we use the sextal system, Damp's already averaging double digit (10.something) rebounds, so why complain?

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: grndmstr_c

You know, the annoying thing is that I really didn't intend to complain. I feel good about the team's (and Damp's) rebounding potential and I think they'll get it together, and I couldn't be happier about being 2-0. I'm just having a hard time with the inability/unwillingness of some people to recognize the weaknesses that obviously exist at this stage in the team's development.

I wasn't really trying to pick on you, but I don't think you can really look at the first two games and assume that the Mavs are going to be a poor rebounding team. However, it's easy enough to look at the roster and realize that if Josh Howard doesn't play 30 minutes a game (which he won't), the Mavs are not going to be a great rebounding team. And that's okay, IMO. They just need to be a good defensive rebounding team, which I feel like they will.

That said, I tend to agree with PE. At this point, I'm paying more attention to general trends, like the fact that the Mavs have led wire-to-wire and looked pretty darn impressive while still just getting acclimated to one another.

[madape]

If we want it bad enough, it's going to happen. Let's all say it together:

Damp is great. Damp is great. Damp is great. Damp is great.

[Max Power]

Originally posted by: EricaLubarsky
We have a 60% on guy in Damp it seems

EL hit on an important point here. ALL the new guys have hit about 60% so far. Stack was terrible most of the first game and Terry didn't do much. Harris was invisible the 2nd game. (Henderson has played well in both games but his role is REALLY limited).

Inconsistency is to be expected early in the season - all the players are getting used to each other. It would have been nice to work out some of this in the preseason but there were too many injuries.

[EricaLubarsky]

Damp is great

[Scoobay]

as Cosby would say:

Damp is great... gives us chocolate cake...