Inflated Rebounding Numbers
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by Kwinger 00
Everytime I hear of statistics from the earlier years of the NBA, I get annoyed. How can a player average 27.2 rebounds per game like Wilt Chamberlain did in 1961? To put that in perspective, since the 1986-87 season, only have had 27 or more rebounds in a game, with the highest being Charles Oakley in 1988 with 35! Not only did Wilt average over 27 rebounds for an entire season, he once grabbed 55 rebounds in a single game (1960 - NBA record)! I know he was a dominating center, probably the most dominating in the history of the game, but 27.2 rebounds per game and 55 in one game?
Dennis Rodman, the most unusual player/human (debatable - the human part, not the unusual player part, I can't say for sure that he belongs to the mammalian species Homo sapiens) to play the game in our generation, was also (somehow) the most dominating rebounder. His best rebounding season came in 1992 with the Pistons, a year in which he averaged an astounding 18.7 rebounds per game. So the most dominating rebounder most of us have ever seen averaged a little over 2/3 of what Wilt had in 1961. Was Wilt that good? The answer is no - not even close.
As I was browsing Basketball-Reference.com (Which, by the way, is the place to go if you are a stat freak like me. There has to be at least one person out there that is other than me...please, I don't want to be classified in the same breath as Rodman. Actually come to think about it, the guy who made that site has to be one. Thank you guy), I checked out the top 100 rebounding totals in a single season, and I noticed a trend. 21 of the top 24 single-season rebounders were either Bill Russell or Wilt the Stilt (The other 3? Jerry Lucas). Furthermore, the top 7 were all Chamberlain's. Then I started checking out the years. The top 19 were attained in the 1960s, as well as 49 out of the top 100. In fact, only 12 of the top 100 were after the NBA and ABA merged in 1977.
The game was obviously played differently in the NBA before 1977. The main difference was the ability of shooters - or lack thereof. In 1960, teams shot 40.1% from the field and 73.4% from the free throw line. Last year, the average NBA team shot 45.8% from the field and 75.2% from the charity stripe. Also, the average team put up 6536 field goal attempts last year, as well as 2131 free throw attempts. Compare that to 1960, where teams shot an average of 8151 field goal attempts and 2688 free throw attempts - an astounding 2172 more shot attempts while shooting a dismal 5.7% less from the field and 1.8% less on free throws. All of which means there were more available rebounds than there are now. In fact, in 1960, the average team pulled down 5513 rebounds. In 2007? 3366 rebounds - a 2147 difference! That got me thinking of a way to compare rebounding totals from different eras. How would Wilt's 27.2 average stack up in today's game? Who had the greatest rebounding year ever? You'll be surprised.
Let's take a look at how I compared these players. We will use Wilt's "legendary" 1961 season.
1. Find the percentage of rebounds the player had (2149) of his team's total rebounds (5938): 2149 / 5938 = 36.19%
2. The team's total rebounds(5938) are then compared to the league average during that respective year (5789 in 1961): 5938 / 5789 = 1.03
3. Since the NBA average for rebounds per team in the last 5 years is 3417 per year, the projected team total rebounds is found by taking the NBA average for the past 5 years (3417) and multiplying it by the answer from #2 (1.03). This is done to project the team's total rebounds in the present-day NBA: 3417 x 1.03 = 3505
4. Multiply the total from #1 (.3619) and #3 (3505) to get the individual's projected individual rebounding total in present-day: 3619 x 3505 = 1268
5. Divide the total from #4 (1268) by the number of games played by the individual (79) to get the projected RPG: 1268 / 79 = 16.1
As you can see, Wilt's 27.2 average in 1961 compares to a 16.1 average in today's game. While this is still an amazing figure, it is not as astronomical as posting an unlikely 27.2 rebounds per game. In fact, this 16.1 ranks in at #5 in Projected Total Rebounds and #9 in Projected RPG. His seemingly impossible standards are not as gaudy as they appear.
For my little research project, I took the league leader in RPG from every year since 1951 (except 1999 - lockout season), as well as the next 28 highest totals for total rebounds in one season for a grand total of 85 players. The following is what I found:
Total Rebounds
Projected Total Rebounds
Rebounds Per Game
Projected Rebounds Per Game
Statistically, the top rebounders ever are:
1. Chamberlain 2. Russell 3. Lucas (distant third)
- Rodman barely cracks the top 10
After my calculations:
1. Rodman 2. Chamberlain 3. Russell
As you can see, sometimes the statistics do not tell the whole story.
After doing all of this, I decided to see how legit Oscar Robertson's famous 1962 season in which he averaged a triple-double - 30.8 ppg, 12.5 rebounds, 11.4 assists. Using the same formulas as I used for the rebounding statistics, I found this:
His amazing triple-double season turns into a solid 25.6 ppg, 7.5 rpg, and 10.3 apg. Not bad at all, but it isn't close to a triple double - he's 201 rebounds short of it.
Suddenly, the past isn't as great as the statistics showed.
