With most of free agency's big names off the board, teams scouring the market now figure to focus on finding bargains or adding specialists. Not many of the players still available will be able to contribute a little bit of everything, but there are plenty that excel in one specific area, whether that area is three-point shooting, rebounding, defending, or something else.
In recent days, we've examined the top scorers and the top three-point shooters still available in free agency. Today, we'll turn our attention to the best free agent rebounders.
Listed below are the top 15 remaining free agents by rebound rate (a percentage of missed shots they rebounded). Their rebound rate for 2012/13 is listed in parentheses. To qualify, these players must have averaged at least 10 minutes per game and appeared in at least 20 contests in '12/13.
- Hamed Haddadi (19.8%)
- Johan Petro (18.2%)
- Lamar Odom (17.7%)
- Nikola Pekovic (15.9%) (R)
- DeJuan Blair (15.6%)
- Ivan Johnson (14.7%)
- Kevin Jones (13.5%)
- Kurt Thomas (13.3%)
- DeSagana Diop (12.9%)
- Chris Wilcox (12.8%)
- Antawn Jamison (12.2%)
- Dominic McGuire (12.0%)
- Luke Babbitt (10.9%)
- Lance Thomas (10.6%)
- Hakim Warrick (10.4%)
Honorable mention:
- Among the players who just missed the cut: Sam Young (9.9%), Luke Walton (9.8%), and Ronnie Brewer (9.6%).
- There were a handful of players with impressive rebound rates that would have qualified for the above list if they'd played a little more. Among them: Shavlik Randolph (20.9%; 16 games), Cole Aldrich (17.7%; 8.6 MPG), and Louis Amundson (16.7%; 9.5 MPG).