Crashing the Boards: OKC Thunder Among NBA's Best in Rebounding

The Oklahoma City Thunder finished the season with the fourth-worst record in the NBA at 22-50. While they were near the bottom of the league in nearly every statistical category, OKC shined on the glass.

The Thunder finished the 2020-21 season at sixth in the NBA in rebounds with 45.6 per game. While they weren't great on the offensive glass, pulling down only 9.9 per contest (14th in the NBA), their defensive rebounding saved them.

When other teams missed shots on offense, Oklahoma City was extremely efficient at grabbing their misses. In fact, their 35.7 defensive rebounds per game was tied for third-best in the entire league.

What's most impressive about this is how young and inexperienced the Thunder frontcourt was. Outside of two players, every one of OKC's bigs were 24 or younger.

Individually, Moses Brown led the Thunder with 8.9 rebounds per game, including 3.6 on the offensive glass. Darius Bazley, who played a variety of positions during the season, finished second on the team with 7.2 rebounds per contest. From there, OKC's other two centers, Al Horford and Tony Bradley pulled down 6.7 and 6.1 rebounds per game respectively.

To Oklahoma City's benefit, a handful of the guards and wings were also excellent rebounders. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grabbed 4.7 rebounds per contest and Kenrich Williams averaged 4.1 boards per game.

What's most promising about these numbers is how it will impact the Thunder's style of play going forward. Head Coach Mark Daigneault likes to play with a fast pace and let whoever pulls down the defensive rebound to get the ball up the floor as quickly as possible. Due to this, many of the Thunder's bigs were given the green light to bring the dribble the ball up in certain circumstances rather than an outlet pass to a guard.

Being such a good defensive rebounding team really allows you to play like this, as getting a stop and rebounding efficiently will only increase the pace of play. While the roster will likely change quite a bit over the next few seasons, it appears Oklahoma City has already started to become an established rebounding team.