So often in my free time I like to play around with Stathead’s basketball season finder, where you can search for seasons throughout NBA and ABA history. One day I get an itch about offensive rebounds after seeing how crucial they can be late in close games, so I looked up who has the most seasons averaging 4 offensive rebounds per game. The top two spots seemed to be the guys you’d expect, Moses Malone with 14 followed by Dennis Rodman with 10. The third spot, however, surprised me, Andre Drummond with 7. The guy has been in the league for 8 years and has more such seasons than Charles (6), Shaq (4), and Olajuwon (4). I knew he was a good rebounder and remember him leading the league at points, but this 2 time all star being listed among the all time greats got me intrigued.

Among active players, Drummond is 7th in career rebounds. That doesn’t sound too amazing until you realize that he was drafted at least 4 years after everyone ahead of him. In fact, the next highest rebounder from his draft class is Anthony Davis, ranked 28th, almost 3000 rebounds behind, yet also considered a great rebounder in his own right. Since Drummond was drafted, he has lead the league in:

  • TRB/G: 4 times (’16, ‘18-’20)
  • ORB/G: 6 times (‘13-’17, ‘19, ’20)
  • DRB/G: 1 time (’18)
  • TRB: 4 times (‘16-’19)
  • ORB: 7 times (‘14-’20)
  • DRB: 3 times (‘16, ‘18, ‘19)
  • TRB%: 4 times (‘14, ‘16, ‘17, ‘20)
  • ORB%: 5 times (‘14, ‘15, ‘17, ‘19, ‘20)
  • DRB%: 3 times (‘16, ‘17, ‘20)

Again, this is during just his first 8 years. He averages 13.8 rebounds a game for his career, by far the most among active players. Dwight is second 1.5 rebounds behind with 12.3. Even just comparing their first 8 years as Dwight has past his prime, it’s still a big difference in 13.8 vs 13.0. So we know he is way ahead of the guys he’s playing with and against, let’s look where he falls historically.

As a disclaimer, these stats come post merger, so starting with the ‘76-’77 season. I chose this benchmark as it is when I feel the modern NBA started to come into fruition. A large reason for this is the increase of the NBA talent pool adding players such as Dr. J, Moses Malone, Maurice Lucas, George Gervin, and David Thompson. Granted the 3-point line was still a few years away, but the ABA is the reason for its addition. I know this may unfairly overlook great rebounders like Dave Cowens, and Kareem, who’s best years were just before the merger, but it seems a lot of NBA players’ numbers took a noticeable hit immediately after the merge. (Both players had their lowest rebounding years of their career in the first year post merger.) Also, if we use the entire NBA history, it’s impossible to compare stats like rebounds to guys in the early NBA, a la Russell and Wilt.

Let’s look at where he ranks all time in certain categories:

Total Rebounds (First 8 seasons)

  1. Andre Drummond: 8288
  2. Dwight Howard: 8072
  3. Dennis Rodman: 7666
  4. Buck Williams: 7576
  5. Hakeem Olajuwan: 7441

Career seasons:

  • Most with 10 TRB/G: 19th (7)
  • Most with 11 TRB/G: 11th (7)
  • Most with 12 TRB/G: 4th (7)
  • Most with 13 TRB/G: 3rd (7)
  • Most with 14 TRB/G: 3rd (4)
  • Most with 15 TRB/G: 2nd (3)

Now with only 8 seasons, it would’ve been tough to crack to top 10 in the 10 and 11 rebounds per game category but he still ranks fairly high, tied with Hall of Famers like Tim Duncan and Karl Malone. From there he falls behind Dwight, Moses, and Rodman, then just Moses and Rodman, then just Rodman. Moses and Rodman are considered by many among the best rebounders of all time let alone post merger and Drummond is right there with them through his first 8 seasons. So strictly by the numbers Andre Drummond is definitely up there. It is also worth noting that he is the all time rebounds per game and rebound percentage leader, but that is expected to go down when he passes his prime.

Why is he only a 2 time all star that’s seemingly never talked about if he ranks so highly around these all timers? Well simply, he doesn’t do much else other than rebound and had been on average to below average teams his entire career. Not once has he put up over 20 points a game in a season with his best season is this past one averaging 17.7. In fact, outside of the paint, Drummond is almost useless. This past season he shot a solid 66.1% at the rim, other than that, a mere 34.8% with an overwhelming majority of that in between 3 and 10 feet (9/60 form over 10 feet away compared to 784 FGA total). He rarely even tries to take a shot outside of 3 feet away, maybe that’s why he’s getting so many offensive rebounds. He’s also poor at running the pick and roll, in his 49 games with the Pistons this past year, Andre Drummond produced 0.96 points per possession, good for 30th percentile in the NBA. Having such a one dimensional franchise player could also be a reason his teams have never really been that great, making the playoffs only twice in his career leading to the Pistons eventually moving on from him dumping his salary to the Cavaliers.

Even if he doesn’t do much else, he’s still a great rebounder, but can he continue his pace with the Cavs? Well, when Drummond was with the Pistons, the only teammates to ever average more than 7 rebounds per game were Greg Monroe, who left the team in 2015, and Blake Griffin for 1 year. It’s possible he just had no competition with his team. The Cavs will not be built the same way with Kevin Love, Larry Nance Jr., and if he resigns, Tristan Thompson. In his 8 games with the Cavs, he dropped from 15.8 rebounds per game to just 11.1. Another interesting thing though is that in the pick and roll, he produced 1.25 points a possession as the roll man, good for 76th percentile, considerably better than his 0.96 on the Pistons. Now is 8 games too small of a sample size? Of course it is. These numbers don’t mean anything yet, but we can speculate that it may be tougher to get the hoard of rebounds Drummond is used to, and it would also be interesting if he expands his offensive game.

All stats were taken from Stathead, Basketball Reference, and NBA.com.