When you think of the Brooklyn Nets, you probably think of a gritty team full of selfless players who are overachieving through 20 games this year.
Led by Mikal Bridges and Cam Thomas, the Nets have a fun, up-tempo style of play that makes heads turn and lights up the scoreboard. An overlooked factor for this Nets squad is the fact that it astonishingly leads the entire league in rebounds per game at 48. Just last season, the Nets ranked second-last at 40.5 per contest.
It's a remarkable turnaround to go from virtually the worst rebounding team in the league to the best, but that's exactly what the Nets have done.
Led by big men Day'Ron Sharpe, Nic Claxton and veterans Dennis Smith Jr., Spencer Dinwiddie and Cam Johnson, Brooklyn is attacking the boards with ferocity.
Much of it has to do with an organizational philosophical change from a 1 through 5 switching defensive scheme last year, to a drop defense with hints of matchup zone sprinkled in.
The personnel has changed over drastically as well with divas Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving playing elsewhere, and the 2023-24 version has adopted a hard hat mentality to gang rebound and do the dirty work.
Brooklyn is one-game out of the No. 5 seed, held by the Knicks, as they're crowded among other Eastern Conference squads looking to reach the top six.
As long as the Nets are able to shake the early injury bug that has plague virtually every player on the roster outside of Nic Claxton, there's no reason to believe the Nets rebounding prowess will change for the worse anytime soon.
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