Philadelphia 76ers: Andre Drummond declares he’s the rebounding GOAT

Andre Drummond appeared in 49 games with the Philadelphia 76ers during the 2021-22 NBA season. He started 12 times, came off the bench in 37 more, and yet, despite the relatively small sample size, the “Big Penguin” pulled in 20 rebounds on four separate occasions and was responsible for four of the five-highest rebounding games on the team last season.

That’s right, despite only playing 20 or more minutes on just 11 occasions, Drummond was consistently able to rebound the ball at both ends of the court and near-single-handedly kept the team out of last place in the category during his two-thirds of a season in red, white, and blue. As improbable as it may sound, Drummond accounted for 20.9 percent of the Sixers’ rebounds in games where he played during the 2021-22 season and helped to cover for forwards like Georges Niang, Furkan Korkmaz, Danny Green, and Matisse Thybulle, who averaged just 10.1 total rebounds combined. Sure he could dribble the ball a little bit and threw some truly fun passes as a glorified point center, but Drummond’s brightest contributions came on the boards, where he was truly in a league of his own.

Could Drummond be back with the Sixers this fall? Sure, that’s a total possibility. While most folks would rather see the team roll with their young duo of Charles Bassey and “BBall” Paul Reed behind “The Process” himself, Joel Embiid, it’s all too easy to imagine Doc Rivers badgering Daryl Morey into bringing back his long-time family friend for a second tenure with the team… assuming he doesn’t get signed up on the MLE by a center-needy team like the Toronto Raptors or the Charlotte Hornets.

But there’s a time and place for that conversation. Right now, I’d rather tackle Andre Drummond’s own words and see if he really is the “best to ever do it” at rebounding both in the context of the current NBA landscape and historically, when then-Philadelphia 76ers center Wilt Chamberlain was pulling in 40-plus rebounds against ‘plumbers and firemen,’ as J.J. Reddick would put it.

Drummond was a very good rebounder for the Philadelphia 76ers in 2021-22.

Alright, so let’s get this out of the way right from the jump: Andre Drummond is not the greatest rebounder of all time. Yes, he’s led the NBA in rebounding four times in his career, which is very good, but his very best season on the boards, 2017-18, only ranks 80th association-wide and is well behind players like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, who combined to rebound 43,734 balls over the 18-best rebounding seasons in NBA history.

With that being said, Drummond does actually have three of the four most rebounding seasons of any active player in the NBA today alongside fellow former – hopefully – Philadelphia 76ers center DeAndre Jordan and is among the league-leaders in the stat in every season since his second season in Detroit.

But wait, it gets better. Over the past nine seasons, Drummond has recorded the most rebounds of any player Per 36 minutes in six of them and actually had his most impressive season in 2021-22, where he would have brought in an average of 17 per game split between the Sixers and the Brooklyn Nets.

Goodness, when it’s no wonder some fans want to see Drum back in red, white, and blue this fall; he’s a fun player to watch and a very good rebounder indeed, even if rolling with Paul Reed and Charles Bassey is subjectively the better option.

Unless the NBA changes drastically in the very near future, we’ll probably never see another player crack 2,000 rebounds in a single season again. Guards and even some forwards don’t box out once the ball starts to arc down, and even fewer still are willing to do so on the offensive end of the court to keep a play alive. Because of that, Andre Drummond will never surpass Wilt, Bill Russell, or a ton of other players in the all-time rebounding GOAT contest. But in the modern-day NBA, Drummond actually is one of the best board getters you’ll find in the association, which is why the Philadelphia 76ers targeted him in the first place; that and his relationship with Doc Rivers.