Trivia question: What is the record for most consecutive games with at least 15 rebounds? We'll get to the answer shortly.
In a 23-point loss to Oklahoma City on Feb. 8, DeAndre Jordan had a fairly nondescript game: eight points and 10 rebounds in 35 minutes.
Just one night later at Dallas, Jordan exploded for 22 and 27, beginning a nine-game tear the likes of which have never been done in a Clipper uniform, as his nine straight games with at least 15 rebounds is a franchise record.
What you see above are all 182 of Jordan’s rebounds over the last nine games as well as every missed shot that led to a Jordan rebound.
Just how many rebounds is that?
Jordan has 66 more rebounds than any other player since Jan. 9. The gap between Jordan and Hassan Whiteside (second over that span), is larger than the gap between Whiteside and the player with the 58th-most rebounds over that span (Nick Collison and Harrison Barnes) and larger than the gap between Whiteside and Ricky Rubio.
If you took away all of Jordan's offensive rebounds, Jordan would still lead the NBA in rebounding over this stretch. That's dominating your skill set.
Rather than take away the offensive rebounds, let’s focus on them simply because they paint a picture of just how critical Jordan’s run has been to Doc Rivers’ team.
Prior to this run, Jordan was averaging 4.4 offensive boards per game. Since that game at Dallas, he’s averaging 6.1 offensive boards per game, effectively creating two extra possessions for an offense that leads the NBA in points per possession.
Based on our tracking, Jordan’s 55 offensive rebounds have led to 57 second-chance points; or 6.3 second-chance points per game. By comparing Jordan’s offensive rebound rate during this stretch (18 percent) to the league average for starting centers (10 percent), you’d expect about 3.5 second-chance points per game from an average center, which means Jordan has essentially “added” three additional points per game on the offensive glass alone.
How big of a difference is three points?
If you subtracted that from their season averages, the Clippers would fall from second to fifth in points per game and second to 10th in average scoring margin. Considering no team in NBA history has won an NBA title when ranked that low in scoring margin, you can make a case that without Jordan’s work on the offensive glass alone, the Clippers wouldn’t even be in the conversation among title contenders.
Some other notes on our video tracking of Jordan’s rebounds:
Jamal Crawford and J.J. Redick tied for the most missed shots that led to offensive rebounds, with 11 each.
In terms of scoring, the largest beneficiary of Jordan’s offensive boards was Jamal Crawford who scored 17 2nd-chance points off of those extra opportunities.
They were tough rebounds. All but three of his offensive rebounds were contested rebounds meaning there’s more to it than simply “right place, right time”.
He’s not simply playing volleyball with himself either. Only seven of his offensive rebounds were of his own misses.
While the focus here is on his rebounding, it’s also worth mentioning that Jordan is seriously challenging Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA record for highest field goal percentage in a single season (72.7 percent in 1972-73). Jordan’s field-goal percentage is 71.7 entering Wednesday night.
So how is he doing it?
By knowing his own limitations and staying comfortably close to the basket. As you can tell by the zone chart above, Jordan has made only a single shot from outside the paint the entire season. Of his 279 makes, 186 of them have been dunks.
This is nothing new for Jordan.
Over the last 15 seasons, there are over 3,500 instances of a player attempting at least 300 shots in a single season. Of all of those seasons, Jordan owns the three highest in terms of percentage of total attempts within five feet, including his mark of 97 percent this season which is the highest of them all.
Trivia answer: 186 by Wilt Chamberlain. The earliest Jordan could get there is the 74th game of the 2016-17 season.