Dwight Howard (+105)
Howard conceded the rebounding crown to Kevin Love last season, but that might be motivation enough not to let him do it this year. Howard nearly posted a career high number of rebounds last season (1098), but his career high was in 07-08, when he pulled down 1,161 rebounds. It’s hard to ask much more of Howard than 14.1 rebounds a night, so we’re basically looking at one factor here:
Can Kevin Love (+105) maintain his 15.2 rebound per game average from last season?
I think he can, and Love is my favorite for this award. He’s only 22 and the fact that he doesn’t do it with athleticism makes him less of a wild card than someone like Howard whose rebounding prowess is one ankle sprain away from being less effective. Love’s old fashioned approach to rebounding is one that can never fail, and he should be a huge focus for the Timberwolves, as he not only gets a lot of shots on his own merit, but also cleans up the misses of teammates. I don’t know if Love can top his 15.2 of last season, but that put him nearly a full rebound ahead of Dwight Howard, whose odds to win this award are somewhat perplexingly identical to Love’s.
Darkhorses: Blake Griffin (+500), Zach Randolph (+500), Kris Humphries (+1200)
Griffin averaged 12.1 boards per game as a rookie and has the athleticism to put up even bigger rebounding numbers than that. He does share the duties with DeAndre Jordan, who averages over 10 rebounds per-36 minutes in his own right, but if Blake Griffin put his mind to it, this award could be his.
I would be shocked if Zach Randolph found a way to win this award despite having about a 4 inch vertical leap, but stranger things have happened and Randolph against all odds has a career rebounding average of 10.4 per game. Still, I don’t see any way he could surpass either Howard or Love.
Humphries is more known for his brief marriage with Kim Kardashian than his playing abilities, but one thing he can do is rebound. Last season, he averaged 10.4 rebounds per game in only 27 minutes a night. That works out to 13.5 per-36 minutes. We don’t yet know where Humphries will be playing next season, but if he landed in a situation where he could see 35 minutes a night, this would be a great bet, and long shots are long shots for a reason, so if you’re the kind of bettor that enjoys small speculative bets, this actually isn’t that bad of one, because if Hump lands in the right place and gets the minutes, he could shock the NBA and win the rebounding crown.
