Zach Edey is making a massive impact at Memphis

The NBA season is almost a quarter of the way through, but it still feels like we’re learning a lot about what’s right and what’s not. Between hot streaks and a depressing amount of star damage, narratives and stats can still take volatile swings one way or another.

According to an analysis by Krishna Narsu with Nylon Calculus, the rebound percentage can possibly be trusted for about 15 games, a threshold the league has recently passed. While there are obviously teams that have spent much or less than the entire season, this seems like as good a time as any to check in on these stats.

Rebounding is an extremely effective means of creating extra possessions for your offense and producing points on the offensive end while limiting your opponents ability to do so by controlling the defensive glass keeps the possession battle in your favor on the other end.

It takes a certain amount of discipline, effort and yes, size to be a dominant rebounding team. Winning basketball games is also far from perfect. At a rough glance, the conference finalists over the last four seasons averaged 11th in the league in rebounding percentage, ranging from fourth (Nuggets in 2023) all the way down to 26th (Mavericks in 2024).

Here we will outline which teams are looking at the glass so far this season.

Subscribe to The Whiteboard, FanSided’s daily email newsletter on all things basketball. If you like The Whiteboard, share it with a friend! If you don’t like The Whiteboard, share it with an enemy.

The league leaders last season were the Knicks at 52.7 percent, while the Rockets led the league at 53.0 percent the year before, so those numbers are right in line with what we’ve seen recently.

The Memphis Grizzlies and their massive rookie center, Zach Edey, are pacing the league in rebounding at this point in the season. Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder are at the bottom of the league with their pint-sized lineups trying to stay afloat after injuries to their big men.

Within the top five, the Raptors, Rockets, Grizzlies and Hornets get their numbers mainly through a focus on crashing the offensive glass, as they rank first, second, third and fourth in the league in offensive rebound rate, respectively.

Edey hustles opponents on the offensive glass for fourth in the league in individual offensive rebound rate (min. 15 minutes per game), grabbing three of them per game. match in just 20 minutes each outing. At 7-foot-4, he’s just so hard to keep off the boards, and this part of his game has predictably translated extremely well from college.

However, Edey is not alone. According to Cleaning the Glass, he is one of five players on the list who are in the 80th percentile or better for their position in offensive rebounds. Jake LaRavia, Brandon Clarke, Marcus Smart and John Konchar all crash the offensive glass with reckless abandon, flying in from all over the court.

On the other hand, Memphis is just 23rd in the league in defensive rebound percentage and 27th in opponent second-chance points per game. match. They have actually struggled to prevent opponents from using one of their greatest strengths against them.

They like to get out and run, and play in transition more often than any team in the league, so perhaps this contributes to some missed defensive rebound opportunities. Some of their other frontcourt players like Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jay Huff are also relatively poor rebounders for their careers, adding to the problem.

Down in Houston, everyone’s favorite bench duo of Amen Thompson and Tari Eason use their elite athleticism to help the Rockets control the boards on both ends as they sit in the top ten in both categories. Seriously, if you haven’t seen these two come into the game and wreak havoc in every corner of the pitch, you’re missing out.

The Rockets’ ability to create extra shots for themselves while limiting their opponents’ extra opportunities is an extremely underrated part of their success so far this season. Coach Ime Udoka had dominating boards high on his to-do list coming into the season and they have not disappointed.

The Clippers, ranked third overall, are the only team in the top five to do so because of their defensive rebounding, where they are first in the league at 74.6 percent. Your no. 5-ranked defenses, in addition to the abundance of talented defenders, are supported by their ability to limit opponents to one shot. They allow just 12.1 second-chance points per game. game, which is the second furthest in the league.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Thunder can’t seem to keep a player over 6-foot-6 on the court for too long and doesn’t rebound well at all. That being said, they have the No. 1 in the league, so it’s hard to complain. They fly around the court and generate turnovers while limiting offensive turnovers themselves to win the possession game that way instead of on the glass. After Isaiah Hartenstein’s long-awaited debutthey look to shore up that weakness while continuing to wreak havoc before the shot goes up, which would make this elite team even more terrifying.

It shouldn’t be too surprising to see the 76ers in their season from hell at the bottom of the list as well. Joel Embiid has clearly had an … eventful start to the year, and they seriously lack size at every other position on the floor.

Overall, this list shows a bit of a jumble of teams up and down the list of wins leaders across the league at the moment. Six of the top 10 are over .500, while the other four have lost more games than they have won, showing a weaker correlation between the two variables on the surface. The Rockets and Hornets are the only two teams in the top ten in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage, but both have seen different results in the win/loss column as a result.

As teams get healthier, we may see some bigger shifts in some of these numbers, so keep an eye on which teams remain disciplined in their approach and which ones may begin to decline as the season progresses.