National Basketball Association all-time rebounding leaders 1946-2023

Wilt Chamberlain is the all-time rebound leader of the National Basketball Association with a total of 23,924 rebounds in his career. The highest ranked player still active in the NBA is Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers, who has a total of 14,627 rebounds to his name.

Basketball legends

In basketball, a rebound is defined as a player either retrieving the ball after a missed field goal or free throw or tipping in a missed shot on an offensive play. Wilt Chamberlain is the undisputed king of the rebounds, having racked up almost 24 thousand in his 14-year career as a center in the NBA. Chamberlain spent the last five years of his career at the Los Angeles Lakers. However, the honor of being the Lakers’ all-time rebound leader does not belong to Chamberlain, but rather to Elgin Baylor. The small forward spent his whole career, 13 seasons in total, at the Lakers and amassed 11,463 rebounds. The remaining top five in the list of Lakers rebound leaders is made up of legends of the game - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, and Magic Johnson.

All-time scoring leaders

The aforementioned legends of the game also all make it onto the list of NBA all-time scoring leaders. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar tops this list, having scored a total of 38,387 points in his career between 1969 and 1989. He played for two teams during his career, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. While he sits top of the pile of point scorers for the Bucks, he only claims third place for the Lakers, behind Kobe Bryant and Jerry West. The highest active player on the NBA scorers list is LeBron James. James passed Karl Malone on the list in March 2022, scoring the decisive points in a regular season game against the Washington Wizards. With the Lakers forward still going strong, it remains to be seen if he can make it to the very top of the list.