All Your Rebounds Belong to DeAndre Jordan
By Ian Levy
Mar 1, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan (6) saves an out of bounds during the first quarter against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Chicago Bulls by 10, making them 6-2 in the eight games since Blake Griffin underwent elbow surgery. Over that stretch, they’ve been outscoring opponents by an average of 11.2 points per 100 possessions, by far the best mark in league during that time. They aren’t feasting on the weak either, having beaten Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Memphis, in addition to their win against the Bulls. The initial timetable for Griffin’s return—about three weeks—laid out a difficult stretch for the Clippers, one in which they would need someone to step up and help keep their heads above water.
That someone has been DeAndre Jordan.
Yesterday against the Bulls, Jordan finished with 26 rebounds—his 18th straight game with at least 15 rebounds. It was also his eighth 20+ rebound game this season, his fifth since the beginning of February. Over that stretch, he’s been averaging 15.4 points, 17.9 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.2 steals, shooting 68.8 percent from the field. He’s also collected 215 total rebounds in those games, 70 more than the next closest player.
This explosion in productivity, particularly on the glass, partially predates Griffin’s absence. However, things have rocketed upward over the last eight games as more has been asked of Jordan in the Clippers’ frontcourt. Using Kevin Ferrigan’s DRE metric[1. A box score derived estimate of the total value of a player’s contributions at the game level, expressed in net points per 100 possessions. Read more here.] we can see exactly how much his game-by-game production has increased over the past few weeks. The graph below shows Jordan’s DRE by game, the black line is a rolling a five-game average.
DRE is a relatively new metric so many readers may not have a mental scale for it. For the sake of comparison, Anthony Davis leads the league this season in average DRE per game at +7.03. Russell Westbrook comes in at just over +3.5. An average player would be at 0.0 and Lance Stephenson is currently holding down the bottom of the list at -3.33. Obviously, there has been some game-to-game variance, but since Griffin left the lineup, Jordan’s average per game DRE is at +7.02, essentially the same as Anthony Davis for the season. That is not to diminish the rest of Jordan’s season—he was a borderline elite +3.03 in DRE before this recent stretch.
It’s worth noting that this is not just a case of Jordan grabbing Griffin’s rebounds, essentially getting a rebounding bump from playing next to Spencer Hawes. Over this eight-game stretch the Clippers have grabbed 53.1 percent of all available rebounds when Jordan’s been on the floor. Across the entire season, their total rebound percentage with both Griffin and Jordan in the game together is 52.0 percent.
Jordan’s game has not magically expanded. He’s still terrible from the free throw line and as one-dimensional as ever on the offensive end. He’s become one of the most effective players in the league over the past few weeks by taking those things that he generally does well—finishing and rebounding—and doing them absurdly well.