Steven Adams didn’t average double digit rebounds until his 9th year in the league. Yet his teams have always been really good at rebounding.
This has been the ranking of every team Steven Adams have been on in TRB% in order:
4th, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 22nd, 2nd, 1st, 8th
With the exception of 1 year, across 3 different teams, Steven Adams’s teams have been ranked in the top 10 best rebounding team in the league every year and the best team in the league twice, as well as 2nd best twice as well. He has never averaged a really high amount of rebounds but I think he is one of the best rebounders in the league and helps box and isn’t selfish about getting rebounds.
Now lets look at Domatas Sabonis. In order, here is what Sabonis’s teams have averaged in rebounding every year he has been in the league in order:
2nd, 20th, 18th, 24th, 29th, 17/22, 17th, 20th
With the exception of Sabonis rookie year where he was basically a jump shooter and averaged 3.6 rebounds a game, Sabonis’s teams have always been in the bottom half of the league in rebounding. Sabonis is seen as a beast rebounder and averaged 12+ rebounds a game since 2019-2020.
Is Sabonis just gobbling up rebounds on bad rebounding teams? Does Steven Adams improve teams rebounds more? Is this just all statistical noise and Steven Adams has just been on teams with better rebounders? They are both veterans at this point and have been in the league for a while so there is a decent sample size.
I got the numbers from flipping through different years on this for those of you that want to verify the numbers yourself.
Adams is the anomaly here. One box outs, but it’s even more drastic when you only consider his DREBs vs his defensive rebounding impact. He’s the best OREB guy in the league.
I think Sabonis is also a good rebounder, just in a more traditional way. It’s a more difficult case to make, just on data, that a guy getting a lot of rebs isn’t a good rebounder. It’s just kind of rare. But some data like contested rebounds and adjusted on/off stuff can help