MAVS NEWS:

[KillerLeft]

I started by asking Gemini if there was a correlation between blocked shots and defensive rebounds. Yep. 

If a player is aggressively trying to block shots, he’s less likely to get the defensive rebound.

Do blocks matter?

Nice analysis:
https://www.markhw.com/blog/2017/9/22/blocks-over-time

Sorry, I missed this. It's a nuanced thing to talk about, imo. 

Rim protection is awesome, but just like any other stat it can be an empty thing. I'm not saying that Gafford's blocks are empty, but I do think his rim protection tends not to impact the game as possitively as Lively's, Flagg's, or even PJW's at times. This is a little anecdotal on my part, but it's certainly not the game changer teams get out of Wembenyama or Gobert. 

I've never really thought about the correlation you're attempting to make between hunting for blocks and defensive rebounding (or even better, boxing out so that others can rebound), but interestingly, I think you might be onto something in terms of why Gafford's rim protection doesn't seem as impactful as it should be. Cause and effect might be weird and I'd want to think/study some more, but the shot blockers I've noticed changing games are usually the ones who can cover a lot of space quickly with their feet. 

I rewatched the last 5 minutes of one of those close games Dallas won against Minnesota back in '24, and Gafford absolutely BEASTED down the stretch. It was a big reason they won, for sure, but man...he was completely selling his body out with every move. Landing on the floor in a heap on every play. On one hand, suuuuuuper cool that he's willing to play that hard in big moments (even as a general rule, I think effort is a strength of his, but this was crazy effort), but on the other hand, it just didn't seem super sustainable or under control. Guys like Wembenyama and Gobert (and I'd include a healthy Lively on that tier) make controlling that end of the floor look easy at times.