Rebounding has become easily the least glorified part of basketball. Sure, there are players who are revered as great rebounders, like Dennis Rodman and Bill Russell, but for the most part, rebounds are a lost concept of the modern-day NBA fan. Whether you think rebounding is a skill, a result of effort, or both, you cannot deny the importance of having a great rebounder on your team. Rebounds take away possessions from the opponent on defense and grant extra ones on offense. Wouldn’t you say giving your team extra possessions is a pretty important aspect of basketball?
- 1950s – Dolph Schayes – 8,413 Rebounds
- 1960s – Wilt Chamberlain – 19,112 Rebounds
- 1970s – Elvin Hayes – 11,565 Rebounds
- 1980s – Moses Malone – 10,269 Rebounds
- 1990s – Dennis Rodman – 9,964 Rebounds
- 2000s – Kevin Garnett – 9,288 Rebounds
- 2010s – DeAndre Jordan – 8,653 Rebounds
- 2020s – Rudy Gobert – 2,844 Rebounds
- Next
- NBA’s Leading Scorer By Decade: Wilt Chamberlain Almost Scored 25k Points, Karl Malone Surprisingly Led The 90s
- The NBA Players With The Most Rebounding Titles
- NBA Players Who Averaged At Least 20.0 PPG And 10.0 RPG For Their Entire Career
- Active NBA Players Who Are Leading In Major Stat Categories: LeBron James Has The Most Points And Free Throws, Stephen Curry Has Made The Most 3-Pointers
- NBA Players With The Most Points Per Game Since Michael Jordan’s Era
Yes, rebounding takes maximum effort in boxing out your man and timing your jump but take someone like Dennis Rodman, for example. He looked at rebounding as an art form. He would sit and study the rim for hours before games just to see the angles in which shots bounced off. As a result, he became arguably the greatest rebounder ever. Effort, skill, and IQ are all a part of rebounding, and the great rebounders of the game should be celebrated. As you will see below, each great rebounder was conducive to their team’s success as we travel throughout NBA history. Each decade is represented by the best of the best when it comes to rebounding.
To create the perfect list, this is how we measured each decade:
1950 to 1959
1960 to 1969
1970 to 1979
1980 to 1989
1990 to 1999
2000 to 2009
2010 to 2019
2020 to 2022
Now, let’s take a look at every player in each decade who grabbed the most total rebounds.
1950s – Dolph Schayes – 8,413 Rebounds
2nd Place: Larry Foust – 6,703 Rebounds
3rd Place: Harry Gallatin – 6,684 Rebounds
Dolph Schayes was not only the leading rebounder of the 1950s in the NBA, but he was also the leading scorer of the decade. Schayes was a member of the Syracuse Nationals who later became the Philadelphia 76ers, for the entirety of his 15-year NBA career. In the first season that the NBA recorded rebounds, Schayes led the NBA with 16.4 RPG to go along with his 17.0 PPG. He recorded 1,080 total rebounds that season in 66 games played.
From 1950 through 1961, Schayes averaged a minimum of 12.0 RPG per season. For the 1950s decade on its own, he averaged 13.3 RPG and grabbed over 1,000 rebounds in a season 3 times. Schayes would win an NBA championship with the Nationals in 1955. En route to that championship, Schayes led the playoffs in rebounding with 12.8 RPG. For his career in the regular season, Schayes averaged 12.1 RPG, and in the playoffs for his career, he averaged 12.2 RPG. It is safe to say that Schayes is certainly in consideration as the greatest all-around player of the 1950s.
1960s – Wilt Chamberlain – 19,112 Rebounds
2nd Place: Bill Russell – 17,501 Rebounds
3rd Place: Elgin Baylor – 9,786 Rebounds
With no surprise to anyone who knows about basketball, Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest rebounder of the 1960s. Wilt owns a host of NBA records for scoring and rebounding, including being the NBA’s all-time leading rebounder with 23,924 total rebounds. Chamberlain began his career as a rebounding machine, grabbing 27.0 RPG in his rookie season. He would grab 20.0 RPG or more in the next 7 seasons as well while nabbing himself 7 scoring titles in a row.
During his career, Wilt Chamberlain led the NBA in rebounding 11 times. It is the most amount of rebounding titles that one NBA player has ever accumulated. The only seasons of his career that Chamberlain did not lead the league in rebounds were 1964, 1965, and 1970. Otherwise, the title belonged to Wilt, as he grabbed 1,00 or more total rebounds in a season 13 times. He grabbed over 2,000 rebounds in a season twice as well. Aside from his rookie season, Wilt averaged 25.7 RPG in 1962 to go with 50.4 PPG and 27.2 PPG in 1961 to go with 38.4 PPG. Chamberlain holds 6 of the top 7 RPG in a season, including the 3 highest in history.
1970s – Elvin Hayes – 11,565 Rebounds
2nd Place: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – 11,460 Rebounds
3rd Place: Wes Unseld – 10,511 Rebounds
The 1970s is one of the closest rebounding races on our entire list. Elvin Hayes outrebounded Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during the decade by 125 rebounds and beat out his former teammate Wes Unseld by 1,054 rebounds. Hayes spent 16 seasons in the NBA, split between the Huston Rockets and Washington Bullets. Hayes led the NBA in rebounding twice while also winning a championship in 1978 with the Bullets. Hayes is widely regarded as a Top 10 player at the power forward position, and his rebounding numbers are part of the reason why.
The first time that Hayes led the league in rebounds was during his 2nd season in the NBA with the San Diego Rockets. Hayes recorded 16.9 RPG and 25.9 PPG during that season. He would win another rebounding title in 1974 with the Bullets when he grabbed 18.1 RPG. For the entirety of the 70s, Hayes recorded 14.2 RPG, including 3.5 offensive rebounds per game as well. Hayes ranks 4th on the NBA’s all-time rebounds list with 16,279 career rebounds. As you can see, he did most of his damage as a top player during the 1970s.
1980s – Moses Malone – 10,269 Rebounds
2nd Place: Robert Parish – 8,195 Rebounds
3rd Place: Jack Sikma – 8,192 Rebounds
They don’t call Moses Malone “The Chairman Of The Boards” for nothing. Moses Malone is quite easily the best rebounder of the 1980s, grabbing over 2,000 more rebounds in the decade than the next closest player. Malone was a 3-time MVP during his prime and won an NBA championship with the Sixers in 1983, and led the league in rebounds 5 years in a row from 1981 through 1985. He also won a rebounding title in 1979, falling just shy of qualifying for the 1980s.
Malone averaged at least 10.0 RPG in a season in the first 15 out of 16 seasons of his career. During this time, from 1975 through 1990, Malone averaged 13.3 RPG to go with his 22.4 PPG. Malone was always a force to be reckoned with on the offensive glass, going for 5.0 or more offensive rebounds per game 9 times in his career. In his NBA career, Malone averaged 13.8 RPG in 94 career playoff games. Malone ranks just behind Elvin Hayes on the all-time rebounds in 5th place with 16,212 rebounds.
1990s – Dennis Rodman – 9,964 Rebounds
2nd Place: Karl Malone – 8,427 Rebounds
3rd Place Hakeem Olajuwon – 8,000 Rebounds
When it comes to rebounding, nobody in the history of the game was better at it than Dennis Rodman. Dennis used his free time before the game to study the trajectory of the ball after it hit the rim on an errant shot. He mastered it the way an artist master drawing or a musician masters an instrument. Rodman’s defensive and rebounding dominance is evidenced by his championship impact and the fact he out-rebounded Karl Malone by over 1,500 rebounds in the decade. Despite his wild reputation, Rodman’s impact on the court was undeniable, and he played a pivotal role in 5 championships teams during his career.
Dennis Rodman played parts of the 90s with the Pistons, Spurs, and Bulls. He led the league in rebounding 7 seasons in a row while wearing each of their jerseys. From 1992 through 1998, Rodman averaged 16.7 RPG including 5.8 per game on the offensive side of the ball. Rodman had 2 primary jobs on the floor and that was to rebound the ball and defend as if his life depended on it. Rodman did those jobs and did them well as one of the best specialists the game has ever seen.
2000s – Kevin Garnett – 9,288 Rebounds
2nd Place: Tim Duncan – 8,999 Rebounds
3rd Place: Ben Wallace – 8,500 Rebounds
Kevin Garnett is one of the greatest players in the 2000s era. He was a versatile scorer and defender who could impact the game at either end of the floor in any which way he pleased. During the decade, he was named an MVP in 2004, an NBA champion in 2008 as well as the Defensive Player of the Year in 2008. At his peak, he was good for 22.0 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 1.0 SPG, and 1.0 BPG. His rebounding prowess took enter stage starting in his 2004 MVP season.
Garnett won the 2004 MVP award while leading the league in rebounding with 13.9 RPG. He would win the next 3 scoring titles as well, giving him 4 in a row with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Over this time, Garnett pulled down 13.3 RPG on average and led his Timberwolves team to the furthest point they had ever been as a franchise. Overall, Garnett had 3 seasons of 1,000 or more total rebounds and 8 seasons of at least 900 total rebounds in his career.
2010s – DeAndre Jordan – 8,653 Rebounds
2nd Place: Dwight Howard – 8,077 Rebounds
3rd Place: Andre Drummond – 7,424 Rebounds
I am willing to bet that most NBA fans expected Dwight Howard to be the representative here for the 2010s for his dominant 5-year peak in Orlando. However, that is not the case, as DeAndre Jordan edged out Howard by over 550 rebounds. Jordan was a mainstay on the fast-paced Los Angeles Clippers during the 2010s, which clearly helped his case here. More possessions and a more consistent role/situation helped to aid Jordan’s status atop the 2010s as far as rebounds went.
Jordan’s reign atop the NBA in rebounds began during the 2013-14 season. In that season, he averaged 13.6 RPG to lead the NBA. He followed that up in 2014-15 with another league-leading performance of 15.0 RPG, including 4.8 RPG on offense. From 2014 through 2019, Jordan averaged at least 13.0 RPG and averaged 14.1 RPG over those 6 seasons. He helped the Clippers become perennial contenders and was even named an All-NBA selection 3 seasons in a row from 2015 through 2017, including a First Team selection in 2016.
2020s – Rudy Gobert – 2,844 Rebounds
2nd Place: Nikola Jokic – 2,510 Rebounds
3rd Place: Jonas Valanciunas – 2,407 Rebounds
Now, obviously, this category is flawed considering it is sure to change as the 2020s are just 3 years old. Nevertheless, here we are with Rudy Gobert, leading the decade so far by 334 rebounds over Nikola Jokic. Gobert has consistently been one of the NBA’s best big men since 2018, having won 3 Defensive Player of the Year awards in a row from 2018 through 2020. He has also been named an All-Star all 3 seasons of the 2020s so far and now heads into his first season as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
First, Gobert posted back-to-back seasons of 13.5 RPG in 2020 and 2021. Then in his last season as a member of the Utah Jazz, the 7-footer averaged 14.7 RPG to lead the NBA for the first time in his career. For the last 5 seasons out of 6, Gobert has hauled in over 900 rebounds per season and over 1,000 rebounds in 2017 and 2019. Although his offensive rebounding numbers are less than satisfactory, Gobert has hauled in over 10.0 defensive RPG every year of the 2020s so far. The question remains if Gobert can keep these rebounding numbers up as he heads into a new situation, but if the past is any indication, Gobert should be at the top of this list after the 2020s wrap up.
