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What happened to Enes Kanter rebounding skill?

The Blue Elephant

The Blue Elephant

Well-Known Member
He was the chosen one. He was supposed to be one of the best rebounders in the league. His preNBA games he was always the best rebounder whenever he stepped on the floor. I remember Locke saying that was his NBA talent. His rookie year he had 18.3 TRB%. 1.5% higher than people like Nikola Vucevic rookie year who was older than him but eventually managed to develop into an ELITE rebounder leaving Kanter behind. Jonas V rebounding rate was 14.3% his rookie year. Now Kanter 18.3% wasn't quite as high as Kevin Loves rookie year but was higher than any year Karl Malone had in his career. I remember someone did the math and said that if Enes Kanter did a Demarcus Cousin type leap from rookie to sophmore year he would be the best rebounder in the league (maybe it was second best or something). Instead he decreased and is still pretty decent for a rebounder but is not elite. His rebounding was that one skill were many saw he had near GOAT potential and was able to hang his hat on. These last three years he is at a respectable 16-16.5% rebounding rate but nothing to brag about. If Kanter managed to develop 22% rebounding rate and kept the offense he does now while playing average defense he would be invaluable part of team.
 
To me there are 2 points :
ORB% and DRB%. If you ask Kanter to shoot more 3s (which he has been doing, 1.2 a game at a very decent 34%, which is very positive considering this is a new range for him) and more generally to spread the floor more on offense, than his ORB% is going to go down hard. The issue would be more with his DRB% which has been standing at 19.5 this year. For it to be a strong skill, it would have to hover around the 25% mark. More than this would be elite, but it tends to be a bad sign for overall defense, because it generally means (if you are not Dennis Rodman) that the player tends to neglect defense to go after each rebound, see Kevin Love in Minnesota. Howard did it in his best years, standing just below 30% on average while still being a good defender overall, but it's really hard.

If Kanter had a 25% DRB while staying at say 12% ORB because of his offensive use, he would average about 8,7rebs a game in his current playing time, or 11.6 per 36 (as opposed to 10.3 per 36 now). so to me it woudl be really hard to expect him to get more than 11 rebs a game while 1/ Spacing the floor more on offense and 2/ not becoming even more of a liability on defense by going for rebounds instead of boxing out, contesting shots, etc.

And this is without even going into the "with whom does he play thing", because if he plays more alongside Gobert he will cover 4s most of the time and will have to stand around the 3pt line a lot more on defense as well...
 
Meh, I might be contradicting everything I said but Utah is 3rd in the entire NBA in rebound % and I guess that is all that matters. Maybe Enes Kanter is boxing out more so his teamates will get it? Or maybe other players are carrying Kanters slack. I don't watch enough tape and I don't know enough about basketball to know what is the case.
 
The Blue Elephant said:
Meh, I might be contradicting everything I said but Utah is 3rd in the entire NBA in rebound % and I guess that is all that matters. Maybe Enes Kanter is boxing out more so his teamates will get it? Or maybe other players are carrying Kanters slack. I don't watch enough tape and I don't know enough about basketball to know what is the case.
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Kanter hasn't been "bad" at rebounding, his numbers per game are hurt (like those of Favors and Gobert) by the rotation which limits their minutes, but is is true that he hasn't been rebounding at a good enough rate to compensate his defensive difficulties.
 
Kanter is a good offensive rebounder because of his selfishness. Good defensive rebounder but not great because he forgets to box out.
 
There are only so many rebounds to go get in a game. Rudy stepping up will cut into others' opportunities and so on.
 
He is at 9.9 per36. Thats just .4 below his career average, chalk that up to Kanter playing with Gobert.
 
Jazz4ever said:
He is at 9.9 per36. Thats just .4 below his career average, chalk that up to Kanter playing with Gobert.
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When Kanter lost all that weight after his rookie year he became a better basketball player. But he lacked the physical presence to dominate the paint and the boards.
 
So Checketts was talking to Boler on the radio tonight. He said that a couple of weeks ago the radio microphones accidentally picked up and broadcast Quin yelling some not very nice things to Kanter during a timeout.

Did anyone hear what Quin called Enes?
 
mellow said:
So Checketts was talking to Boler on the radio tonight. He said that a couple of weeks ago the radio microphones accidentally picked up and broadcast Quin yelling some not very nice things to Kanter during a timeout.

Did anyone hear what Quin called Enes?
Click to expand...

i just read somewhere that it was some not very nice things
 
Peoples champ on fire tonight
 
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