USATSI
Tari Eason is an efficient offensive rebounder. He may even be an amazing one. Among rookies this season, he ranks third with 2.2 of them per recreation. Alperen Sengun is the one Rocket to tug in additional of them so far this 12 months. But Eason solely performs 19.4 minutes per recreation. He’s began solely thrice in his profession. If I have been to let you know Eason had one of many best offensive rebounding video games within the historical past {of professional} basketball, you’d most likely scoff. But that is precisely what occurred in opposition to the Thunder on Wednesday.
First factor’s first: we specified offensive rebounding for a motive. Eason was invisible on the defensive glass, pulling in solely a single defensive rebound. But in his 19 minutes in opposition to the Thunder, he pulled in a staggering 12 offensive rebounds.
Amazingly, that is not fairly an NBA report. It has occurred three different instances in NBA historical past. Popeye Jones did in 1994, Zydrunas Ilgauskas did it in 2005, and Tristan Thompson did it in 2014. Essentially, that makes this a roughly as soon as per decade feat. Eason was so good on the offensive glass that he managed to tug in 4 offensive rebounds on a single possession.
Lest you consider this recreation was a statistical oddity and nothing extra, the efficiency was one thing of a breakout throughout the board for Houston’s seventeenth total decide. It was additionally the primary 20-point recreation of his profession. He additionally had three steals and two blocks. Most importantly, he helped a short-handed Rockets crew lacking Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr. to an upset victory over the Thunder.
But the historical past books will not bear in mind the NBA’s worst crew pulling out a meaningless victory in the course of a misplaced season. They will eternally memorialize one of many nice, random statistical performances in NBA historical past as a result of likelihood is it will be a decade or so earlier than we see one other recreation like this one.
