https://youtu.be/htIlwuNfWYg
OFFICIAL DTB DISCLAIMER: I did not show all of Alize Johnson’s rebounds in this video. It says “21 rebounds” in the title, but “21 rebounds” are not what is depicted. “21 rebounds” is merely a note of Johnson’s rebound total for the game. The only rebounds you see are the ones he gets in the course of making shots/getting fouled, and I also threw in the 20th rebound for your viewing pleasure. You can watch his rebounds here: https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?ContextMeasure=REB&EndPeriod=0&EndRange=28800&GameID=0022000944&PlayerID=1628993&RangeType=0&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&StartPeriod=0&StartRange=0&TeamID=1610612751&flag=1&sct=plot§ion=game, or, you can watch my video of Enes Kanter getting thirty rebounds to sate your perverse appetite for hot rebounding action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyEGebJ1l4
20/20 games are not all that rare in that grand scheme of things. There have been 19 of them this season. That’s not to say that what Alize Johnson accomplished last night isn’t totally sick and awesome. Because it is. It is both totally sick and totally awesome for a player who stands 6’7″ and who wasn’t even rostered until late March to get a 20/20 game.
When looking at the list of 20/20 games this season (a feat of statistical lookupery I am able to accomplish because I pay real American money for the analytical service Stathead), all the normal names are there. Andre Drummond. Clint Capela. Jonas Valanciunas. Rudy Gobert. For these guys, huge rebounding totals are expected. But then there are some anomalies: Moses Brown. Keldon Johnson. And, of course, our man Alize Johnson. Disappointingly, Stathead doesn’t let me filter on a player’s height (what am I even paying for, anyway?), but if you take centers and forward/centers out of the query, you start to see how rare the non-center 20/20 game really is. Half the results are Kevin Love and he doesn’t even count. Luol Deng did it once in 2009. That might be the closest to what Johnson achieved here. And everybody should know that any comparison to Luol Deng, no matter how tenuous the comparison is, is a very high honor.