The new popular thing to say about Brook Lopez’s alleged “rebounding ability” is that he boxes out really well, allowing his teammates to get rebounds while not collecting many of them himself (4 of them in 37 minutes this game, while Giannis grabbed 18). That’s a cool idea in theory, but the problem with that idea is that “boxing out” is not a statistic that shows up in the stat sheet, which means that I am unable to comprehend it. That’s the same reason that I am unable to care about defense. There’s no entry in the box-score for “defenses played” just like there isn’t one for “players boxed out” (or “rebound assists” if you want a sexier term).
You know, they had the same “boxing out” excuse for Ekpe Udoh when he was on the Bucks. And guess what? That dude was out of the league, came back as a very fringe guy for one season, then was out of the league again. Just saying. GM’s don’t sign guys so they can box out.
(Correction: Ekpe Udoh is still in the league. But barely. So I was kinda right even if my facts weren’t exactly factual)
Luckily, Blopez is hitting so many three-pointers that I’m not even mad about his wimpy rebounding numbers. I want to see him average more three-pointers per game than rebounds per game. That would be awesome and sad at the same time.