Rebounders on display in NBA D-League matchup

For two players on Tuesday night, missed shots will help more than makes.

Tuesday night’s NBA Development League showdown (8 p.m. ET on SportingNews.com) between the Idaho Stampede (11-17) and Tulsa 66ers (15-17) features two of the league’s top rebounders and, by extension, two of its very best NBA prospects. Idaho’s Mikki Moore—a veteran of 85 NBA games—is pulling down close to nine rebounds per game. Meanwhile, Tulsa’s Marcus Lewis is pulling down virtually everything else.


All season long, Lewis has led the league in rebounding. Among players who’ve played 10 or more games, he leads his next-closest competitor (Austin’s Eric Dawson) by more three boards a game, with Tulsa’s big man averaging 13.4 and Dawson 10.3. Lewis has picked up double-digit rebounds in all but three of his 28 games this season—including 23 of his last 24. He has pulled down 20 twice and picked up 20 double-doubles in that span.

There are two reasons to watch this matchup: First, to see the life still left in Moore’s legs. The journeyman center, now 31, played parts of 12 seasons in the NBA and is now out to prove he can fill a hole in an NBA in need of big bodies. Second, watch just to see Lewis in action.

Lewis, who is 6 feet 8, will give up four inches to Moore. But he’s the kind of player who uses a combination of angles and a rare agility to keep himself in position for a rebound. And with Greg Smith now a Houston Rocket, Lewis has become one of the best, if not the best, post prospect in the NBA D-League.

Meanwhile, both teams feature guards with a good shot at a callup in the near future. On the Tulsa side, former UConn star Jerome Dyson—one of the league’s premier defenders—has gone a long way toward filling the holes in his game (jump-shooting ability, turnovers) that have kept him a step behind his competitors in a year that has seen a run on NBA D-League point guards. For Idaho, former Laker Devin Green is quietly putting together a season that has him in line for a callup when an NBA team goes searching for a swingman.