Offensive rebounds are up in the NBA for the fifth straight season. While there are a lot of potential reasons, the data makes it clear what is (and isn’t) the main cause.
On Nov. 26, the Houston Rockets shot 39.4% from the field, 28.2% on 3-pointers and 62.5% from the foul line, submitting a truly awful shooting performance against the Golden State Warriors.
They won anyway.
The offense wasn’t pretty, but the Rockets scored just enough points by grabbing 25 offensive rebounds while the Warriors managed just 34 defensive rebounds. When the Rockets missed a shot, they ended up getting the ball back more than 40% of the time.
This was an extreme example of something that has happened quite often this season. After years of de-emphasis, offensive rebounding is back on the rise. The number of offensive rebounds per team per game has increased for the fifth consecutive year and is up 0.9 over just two years ago and 1.7 since 2020-21. Teams are averaging 11.5 offensive rebounds per game this season, which is the highest total since 2004-05.
When a stat is up for a year or two, it could be random noise. But when there’s an increase for five years in a row, something is happening.
Figuring out what’s changed can be challenging. There are so many factors that go into whether an offensive rebound occurs on a missed shot, including the shot location, what players are on the floor and the spacing of both teams. That’s not even including the factors that affect the total offensive rebounds on a game-by-game basis, like how well teams shot (more missed shots equal more offensive rebounding opportunities).
So to get to why teams are grabbing more offensive rebounds, we have to go through a lot of why nots.
A Few Select Teams Are Skewing the Data
Overpowering their opponent on the offensive glass is not new for the Rockets, who led the NBA in offensive rebounding last season and is doing it again with 16.0 per game.
Theoretically, a handful of teams could have decided to start pursuing offensive rebounds at all costs and made it look like a league-wide trend. But that’s not really the case.
It’s true the Rockets are rebounding at a level that hasn’t been seen in a couple of decades.
But it’s not just the teams at the top that have started crashing the boards more frequently. The New Orleans Pelicans led the league in offensive rebounds in 2020-21 with 11.7 per game. That would rank 15th this season.
Five teams are averaging under 10.0 offensive rebounds per game this season; there were 17 teams doing that in 2020-21.
There are still teams that don’t emphasize offensive rebounding, and some of them are really successful, like the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder. But most teams have seen their offensive rebounding rate climb over the past several years.
There’s Been an Infusion of Offensive Rebounding Talent Into the League
If this is indeed a league-wide trend, then maybe the last few years have brought an influx of elite offensive rebounders.
The data doesn’t suggest this is the case. Only five of the top 10 in offensive rebounds per game have entered the league in the last five years.
Also, the offensive rebounding surge isn’t being led by players at the top of the leaderboard grabbing a bunch more rebounds. Mitchell Robinson of the New York Knicks is leading the league at 4.9 offensive rebounds per game (the most on a per-game basis in the past five years), but Steven Adams of the Houston Rockets is second and he averaged more per game in 2021-22.
Rather than one player grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds, more players per team are grabbing offensive rebounds. It’s left a lot more teams with several players clustered near the top of the leaderboards.
If you look at the teams with the biggest gap between the player who led the team in offensive rebounding and the player who finished second on the team since 2020-21, the majority of teams with the widest gaps were from the first few years of that sample. Only one team this season (the Portland Trail Blazers) is in the top 10 on this list.
That proves it’s not just some really talented players at the top of the league increasing the offensive rebounding rate. It’s a league-wide shift based on a multitude of players getting the boards on offense more often.
Bigger Players Are Playing More Minutes
The Rockets aren’t the only team trotting out bigger lineups. After small ball was all the rage for a while, some teams have taken to unleashing really big lineups, which could lead to more players who are adept at offensive rebounding getting on the floor.
Before the 2019-20 season, the NBA required teams to measure player heights without shoes to get more consistency and accuracy in how height is measured. That year, players who were 6-foot-9 or taller played 25.4% of the minutes in the NBA. This season, that number is up to 29.2%, a big shift upward (as of Jan. 23).
That increase hasn’t been linear, though. The percentage was 29.7% in 2023-24, then fell to 26.5% in 2024-25 before shooting back up this season.
Lineups with at least three players at 6-9 are playing 11.1% of the minutes this season. It’s a massive increase since 2019-20, when those lineups only played 5.0% of the time, but, again, that increase hasn’t been linear.
Data for the 2025-26 season through Jan. 23So while bigger lineups could be playing a role this season, it doesn’t explain why offensive rebounding went up last season.
The Types of Shots Being Taken Lend Themselves to Offensive Rebounds
Certain shots can lead to a higher chance of an offensive rebound. If those shots saw a dramatic increase, it could explain the offensive rebounding increase.
But the shot profiles aren’t dramatically different in a way that lends itself to this theory. Shots from 3-point distance are up since 2019-20, but slightly down from last season.
More layups could lead to offensive rebounds as defenders come over to help, but there hasn’t been a meaningful change in the percentage of 2-point shots that are layups during that time, either.
Shot type doesn’t appear to be the answer.
The Referees Are Letting More Contact Go on Offensive Rebounds
When you can’t find an answer elsewhere, blame the refs!
Calling fewer fouls could open up players to being more aggressive in making contact with defenders trying to secure a rebound.
But fouls are actually up significantly from last year, rising from 37.2 combined team fouls per game to 40.6.
This increase in fouls has led to more free throws per game as well, which does not help offensive rebounding numbers. So, if anything, the difference in foul calls would lead to fewer offensive rebounds.
Coaches Are Allowing More Players to Go for Offensive Rebounds
If it’s not player type, shot type or officiating, what could it be?
It’s simple: Teams are getting more offensive rebounds because they’ve decided getting more offensive rebounds is important.
It’s not exactly a twist from M. Night Shyamalan, but it certainly does seem like the root cause.
As mentioned previously, the surge in offensive rebounding isn’t being led by the elite offensive rebounders in the league but rather by more players per team grabbing offensive rebounds. That’s because coaches are letting players stay in and try to grab boards on the offensive end.
It’s not like coaches in previous years told their players that offensive rebounds were bad. But the thinking was that being too aggressive for offensive rebounds left teams susceptible to transition attacks.
While there is some truth to that at a tactical level, teams have found a way to allow multiple players to crash the glass while maintaining enough floor balance to prevent transition opportunities.
In fact, of the five teams that grab the most offensive rebounds per game, three of them also rank in the top 11 in fewest fast-break points allowed per game.
The Suns are a perfect example of how offensive rebounding can help shape a season. Phoenix is an elite offensive rebounding team that also stops opponents in transition. Jordan Ott’s squad snatches extra possessions with almost no drawbacks and it’s a huge reason why the Suns are one of the surprise success stories in the league.
The offensive rebounding resurgence hasn’t come close to changing the game as much as the 3-point revolution (nor is it likely to do so in the future), but the early years are starting in a somewhat similar way. Coaches are giving players the green light to follow their instincts and players are more than happy to oblige.
Since this offensive rebounding uptick has come from philosophical shifts as opposed to more temporary reasons, the renewed importance of offensive rebounding is likely here to stay for the next few years.
And like an offensive player making a beeline to the rim when his teammate takes a jump shot, ignoring it could prove costly.
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