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player ready...You would think that the NBA’s leading rebounders would be either 7-foot giants or skywalkers able to jump through the roof.
And for the most part, you’d be right.
Through Thursday’s games, San Antonio’s Tim Duncan, a 7-footer, topped the list with 12.9 rebounds per game. Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett, a 6-foot-11-inch jumping jack, ranked third at 11.9 rebounds per game.
Then there’s Warriors forward Danny Fortson. He’s listed as 6-8, and that’s probably a stretch. He barely gets off the ground when he jumps. And he still hasn’t fully recovered from stress fractures to his right foot that required surgery and cost him 101 games the last two years.
Oh, yeah. He’s also the NBA’s second-leading rebounder at 12.8 per game, and he has a legitimate chance to win the NBA rebounding crown.
How is that possible?
“Most rebounds are taken below the rim, not above the rim,” Warriors coach Brian Winters said. “The art of rebounding isn’t always about the high flyers. It’s positioning. It’s strength. It’s just having a nose for the ball, finding a place where you think the ball is going to come off.
“And it’s also a tribute to Danny’s heart, his intensity of play. He pursues the ball so hard. He’s got great hands, long arms and he loves to rebound.”
At 260 pounds and built like an oversized NFL tight end, Fortson also has one of the league’s widest bodies. And he’s not afraid to use that bulk to clear space under the basket.
“He doesn’t try to rebound above the basket,” said Warriors assistant coach Clifford Ray, a top rebounder during his NBA playing days. “What he does is he rebounds with position and allows the ball to come to the area he can control.”
Fortson brings a physical, aggressive football mentality to basketball, attacking rebounds as if they were fumbles.
Unsurprisingly, he grew up in Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. That’s football country, and there was no escaping the gridiron.
“I played tight end, quarterback, a little bit of everything,” Fortson said. “In western Pennsylvania, if you don’t play football they’d call you all kinds of names at school.”
Fortson was a good rebounder at the University of Cincinnati but not a great rebounder. He has found his NBA “niche,” as Winters calls it, as a monster rebounder.
“Desire. Relentlessness,” Ray said of Fortson’s approach to rebounding. “Most people can only give one or two efforts. So they make an initial attempt at a rebound. If they don’t get it on their first effort, they usually die. A good player usually gives you a second effort.
“But the outstanding rebounders are the guys that are relentless, that can get down, get back up, get down, get back up. And that’s what he does.”