Jokić's Rebounding Over Six Seasons: Elite, Stable, and Slightly Rising
Nikola Jokić has never averaged fewer than 10.8 rebounds per game since 2020-21, and his recent mild uptick is real — but the data shows a high plateau, not a linear climb. Here's what six seasons of numbers actually reveal.
Published: · Figures as of August 17, 2026
Asked: what is Jokić's rebounding trend over the past five seasons?
Jokić's rebounding has been elite and stable, not a linear trend
Across the NBA's last six regular seasons, Jokić has averaged between 10.8 and 13.8 rebounds per game — never below 10 and never below 11.8 in any of the last four. The shape is not a clean rise or fall: it dips, spikes, and settles into a narrow band in the most recent three seasons.
| Season | Offensive RPG | Defensive RPG |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 2.8 | 8.0 |
| 2021-22 | 2.8 | 11.0 |
| 2022-23 | 2.4 | 9.4 |
| 2023-24 | 2.8 | 9.5 |
| 2024-25 | 2.9 | 9.9 |
| 2025-26 | 3.0 | 9.9 |
Season-by-season breakdown
| Season | GP | RPG | ORB/G | DRB/G | REB/36 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 72 | 10.8 | 2.8 | 8.0 | 11.3 |
| 2021-22 | 74 | 13.8 | 2.8 | 11.0 | 14.8 |
| 2022-23 | 69 | 11.8 | 2.4 | 9.4 | 12.7 |
| 2023-24 | 79 | 12.4 | 2.8 | 9.5 | 12.8 |
| 2024-25 | 70 | 12.7 | 2.9 | 9.9 | 12.5 |
| 2025-26 | 65 | 12.9 | 3.0 | 9.9 | 13.3 |
What the data actually shows
2021-22 was the outlier, not the peak of a trend. That 13.8 RPG / 14.8 REB/36 season stands well above every other year — driven almost entirely by defensive rebounding jumping to 11.0/game, compared to 8.0–9.9 in every other season. What followed wasn't a decline so much as a return to his normal range: 11.8 in 2022-23, then a steady climb over the last three years from 12.4 → 12.7 → 12.9 RPG.
Offensive rebounding is the one genuinely rising piece. It moved from 2.4/game in 2022-23 to 2.8, 2.9, and now 3.0 in consecutive seasons — the only component with an unbroken upward step over that span.
Defensive rebounding has plateaued at a high level. After dipping to 9.4 in 2022-23, it recovered to 9.5, then 9.9 for two straight seasons.
Per-36 minutes smooths out some of the noise. His REB/36 over the last four seasons sits between 12.5 and 13.3, with no meaningful directional change — meaning the small per-game gains are partly minutes-driven, not purely a rate improvement.
One interpretive note
Per-game rebounds rewards playing time and pace; per-36 controls for both. The two tell a consistent story here: Jokić has been one of the five or so best rebounding centers in the NBA in every season shown, and the recent mild uptick in RPG is real but modest. For a sharper view of opportunity-adjusted rebounding impact, total rebound percentage (TRB%) would be the right lens — it strips out how many shots were missed while he was on the floor. We have the components to compute it, but it requires lineup-level minutes data that isn't in this season table, so that calculation is outside what these totals can confirm.