Yao Ming's rebounds per game

[ST]

In his column on CBS Sportsline, Tony Mejia writes: "Up until last season, (Yao Ming) had never averaged 10 rebounds. For someone of his size, that's troubling." I don't think that's fair. A franchise player generally puts in about 40 minutes per game. Through his career, Yao has averaged between 29 and 34 minutes per game. Based on his rebounds per minute, Yao would have averaged 11.3, 10.9, 10.9, and 11.9 rebounds per game in his first four seasons.

[Louie]

Of the 38 Cs with 100 or more minutes this year, Yao is 10th in rebounds per minute. Or of the 29 with over 200 minutes, he's 9th.

[ST]

Seems to be he should be higher than 9th or 10th in RPM, considering his size and talent. Not discounting the numbers, just an observation on Yao's production.

Are you a stat nerd too?

[Louie]

I enjoy basketball stats and find they add considerably to my observatons of a game. In particular, I like an overall metric for individual performance called WinScores, a product of three sports economists, and the Four Factors work of Dean Oliver for comparing team performance.

Yao's rebounding which is quite decent maybe less than what size and talent would predict because of his team mates, particularly the PF, who may be taking his boards or may not be blocking out well and causing Yao to go two against one (I don't really know which). Also the problemwith per game and per minute is that some teams because of good shooting (or the failure to prevent good shooting) just don't have as many opportunities to board. That can be checked by going to 82games.com for team opportunities.