The Crvena Zvezda big leads the league with 8.1 per game
Who's hot: Can anyone catch Joel Bolomboy for rebounding crown?
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3 Mins read
Is this season’s rebounding crown up for grabs? Joel Bolomboy is doing his best to shut the door on that conversation. The Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade big man leads the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague in rebounding this season with 8.1 rebounds per game, which would be the most in the last three seasons.
Josh Nebo was the 2023-24 rebounding leader with 7.1 per game for Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv and the year before it was Mathias Lessort, then of Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade, with the same average. Georgios Papagiannis averaged 8.2 as the top man for Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens in 2021-22.
Bolomboy makes a strong case, especially since he has remained hot. Over the last five rounds, Bolomboy is fifth in the league with 7.2 rebounds per game. However, it is noteworthy that Bolomboy has only appeared in 15 games this season, so any off night can significantly dent his average.
However, if Bolomboy maintains that 7.2 per game average for Zvezda's remaining eight games, he will finish the regular season with an average of 7.8, which as mentioned before would be the best in the league the past two seasons.
Who could catch Bolomboy?
The best rebounder over the past five rounds has been Panathinaikos's Juancho Hernangomez and it's not by accident. Lessort is third in the league with 7.1 rebounds per game, but he is not expected to play again in the regular season after suffering a broken leg in December. Since the rule applied to qualify for the leaders’ board is having played in more than half of one's team's games, Lessort will fall off the charts after Round 34.
In Lessort's absence, Hernangomez has taken on a bigger role on the glass. Not only does he lead the league with 9.0 rebounds per game over the past five rounds, he has been worth 8.8 over the last eight games. However, that has only been enough to raise his rebounding average to 6.3 per game, which is sixth in the league. If Hernangomez were to average 9 rebounds per game for the remainder of the regular season, that would only be enough to push his average up to 6.9 per game.
Walter Tavares of Real Madrid, who led the league with 8.0 rebounds per game in 2020-21, is second to date this season with 7.4 per game. He would need to average 9.1 rebounds per game over the last eight rounds to overtake Bolomboy's projected 7.8 number.
Another potential candidate to catch Bolomboy could be Chima Moneke. The Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz big man, who leads the league with four double-doubles this season, is fourth for the season with 6.6 rebounds per game and second over the last five rounds with 8.0 per game. He would need to average 11.6 boards over his last eight regular season games to catch Bolomboy’s projected finish.
David McCormack of ALBA Berlin is third in the league over the last five rounds with 7.6 rebounds per game. He has averaged 6.5 rebounds per game since joining ALBA. Unfortunately for him, McCormack played limited minutes in six appearances for EA7 Emporio Armani Milan to start the season and those drop his full-season average to 4.9 per game.