Rebounding is not sexy. Most players spend most of their time shooting because that is where the glamour exists. There is no glory in working your butt off to position yourself just right in order to pull down a rebound that someelse has just shot and that some else will requisition from you in order to shoot. Most kids don't grow up wishing that they could rebound, but instead, salivate thinking about shooting the winning last second shot or the day that they finally get to dunk.
Yet, winning teams always are in the top category of the rebounding statistics. Someone on the winning teams is doing the "dirty work" of "cleaning up the glass". When it comes down to it, more boards equals more possessions. How many rebounds a team acquires compared to how many the team gives ups determines whether or not there is a championship team in the making.
But rebounding is not so easy. It is hard work and it is also an art. To succeed at the rebounding science one must have jumping ability, crafty positioning skills and an intense desire to want to go after every rebound. Great rebounders don't just jump up in their space to get the ball, they also go after the ball outside of their space. They create holes through multiple bodies and "hurl" themselves at where the ball is as opposed to waiting for the ball to come to them.
An elite rebounder must have obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to going after every rebound. To them it must be considered an insult when someone else gets the rebound over them. Wanting to get the rebound has to hurt inside. There are no "ifs, ands or buts" about it. Period.
Moving people out of the way is a prerequisite for being a great rebounder. The desire to get physical must be in the rebounders DNA. Getting low into the legs of his opponent in order to drive him into the parking lot of the gymnasium must be the goal. Power, positioning, craftiness and an intense need to have the ball must be in the blood.
