No one rebounds their own misses like Angel Reese

Angel Reese is only halfway through her rookie season but she's already in rarified air as a rebounder. Her total rebound percentage is a top-12 mark in league history. Her offensive rebound percentage is top 10. She is working on a streak of 11 consecutive double-doubles, the longest streak in league history, and her 12 double-doubles in 18 games give her a very good chance of challenging the single-season record of 23 double-doubles, set by Tina Charles in 2010-11 and Alyssa Thomas in 2022-23.

However, for all those numeric accolades, Reese takes criticism in some corners because a not-insignificant portion of her rebounds have come off her own misses. The implication is that her inefficient finishing is allowing her to pad her rebounding numbers.

There is something to the argument. Reese is shooting under 40 percent from the field on the season and just 42.9 percent on shots inside of eight feet. That ranks 39th among the 41 players who attempt at least four shots per game from that range (and Reese is second in the league in attempts per game from that range, at 10.1).

Reese also, legitimately, is otherworldy at rebounding her own misses. In stats parlance, this is called a Z-bound, and she's leading the league with 19 in 18 games. Again, this is a record that she's well on track to break.

Most rebounds off your own miss in WNBA history, since 2009

Reese still needs to pass 16 players including some all-time greats but, again, she's only played 18 games so far this season. She's averaging more than one z-bound per game and assuming she stays healthy and keeps this up, she'll not just break the record, she'll absolutely smash it.

However, I'm not sure how much this statistical trend actually takes away from her accomplishments, and may even add to it. First, we're only talking about 19 of her 86 offensive rebounds on the season. Removing them completely from her total is a fairly unreasonable thought exercise since all of the best offensive rebounders have at least some portion of their rebounds coming off their own misses. But even if you removed them completely, her offensive rebound percentage would only drop from 16.2 percent to 11.1, which would still be the second-best mark in the league this season.

Another implied idea in this criticism is that rebounding your own miss is somehow easier than rebounding someone else's. I'm not sure that's really true at all, especially for a player like Reese who is mostly camped out in the paint anyway. It's not like we're talking about a guard who is only in position to rebound their own miss because they drove to the basket and missed a layup.

And the last point is that, while her propensity for rebounding her own misses means her stats may slightly overstate her rebounding ability, it also means her shooting percentages may understate her offensive impact. She's rebounded 22.6 percent of her missed shots this season which means nearly a quarter of her missed shots have still resulted in a bucket for her team.

In the end, yes, Reese is fantastic at rebounding her own misses. But that doesn't mean she isn't historically effective on the glass.