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This post by Eric Smith and this 17-page thread on RealGM about Andrea Bargnani's subpar rebounding inspired to me to see how Toronto's starting SF/PF/C combo for 2009-10 stacks up against the rest of the Eastern Conference when it comes to crashing the boards. The way I look at Bargnani's rebounding is that it won't be such a huge deal if Chris Bosh and Hedo Turkoglu can pick up the slack. Well... can they?
In the table below, I've taken the liberty of projecting the starters for the Eastern teams even though at least five of them are probably going be different after all the off-season moves. Here are the rebounds per 36 minutes numbers from 2008-09 for these teams' likely frontcourt trios.
Now I know what some of you are going to say. "Turkoglu will get more rebounds because he's not playing next to Dwight Howard any more... Bargnani has been steadily improving his rebounding and he'll probably continue to improve next season... Reggie Evans will come off the bench and grab loose balls like they're all attached to Chris Kaman..." These sentiments are not necessarily wrong, but the numbers are troubling, nevertheless. It would appear that the Raptors might have the worst-rebounding front three in the Eastern Conference.
Rooting for a team that sucks at rebounding (as the Raptors have for the past seven seasons — their opponents outrebounded them by at least 119 boards in each of those seasons) can be very frustrating, as most of you will attest. But I have to wonder: Just how important is rebounding in the grand scheme of things? Well, the top five teams in rebound differential last season (after you click the link, click "DIFF" on the table header to sort the teams by rebound differential) were Portland, Boston, Cleveland, Houston and the Lakers (average wins: 60). The bottom five teams were Miami, New York, the Clippers, Sacramento and Golden State (average wins: 28). So, yeah, I'd say it's pretty important.
The Raptors actually finished 21st in rebound differential last season, but Jamario Moon with his 6.5 rebounds per 36 in Toronto and Shawn Marion with his 8.5 RP36 in Toronto deserve some credit for keeping the Raptors out of the bottom five. Those guys are no longer with the team.
Let's not mince words. Andrea Bargnani is seven feet tall. If he can't grab at least eight rebounds per 36 minutes next season, that will be more than a little pathetic, and this team will be pretty much fucked. I know we brought in Reggie Evans but if he plays more than 15 minutes per game, this team will be fucked in a different way because he's arguably the worst offensive player in the NBA.
If it takes hiring Jerome Williams as a rebounding coach to work with Bargnani in the off-season so that he can develop into an adequate rebounding center, then let's get it done! I want him studying film and taking pointers from the Junkyard Dog so he knows where to stand, when to box out, and when to, you know, actually grab the damn ball.
I'm really not looking forward to the Raptors getting outrebounded by their opponents for an eighth consecutive season. I know rebounding isn't everything, but when you compare the average win totals of the teams that rebound well with the ones that rebound crappily, and when you recall that the Raptors haven't made it out of the first round of the playoffs in any of the past seven seasons — it's sure as hell something.
I'm tired of the Raptors' broke-ass rebounding. They need to get on top of this thing... AND FIX IT! 
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