You’d have to manually calculate rebound% or rebounds per possession for all the guys before the stat existed. And it would be a ballpark estimate in some ways because you’d have to use team average rebounds rather than against specific opponents because those don’t exist..

But I’ve done this with Wilt a few times in the past to show that him scoring 50ppg when he’s getting substantially more possessions and therefore scoring opportunities, and that conversation spiraled into to rebounding as well..

If I’m remembering correctly Wilt’s actual best rebounding season in terms of rebound% was 1972 with the Lakers. Rebound% stat exists from 1971-now, and as a comparison that season from Wilt ranks 192nd All-Time.

Lots of conversations I’ve had on this topic in the past seem to have been removed. But I’ll paste this bit from a comment about it I’ve made in the past.

“But while it’s impossible to know Wilt’s exact rebound% for years the stat doesn’t exist if we use league averages as an estimate (easier for him than most because he played every minute so we aren’t really estimating his on/off splits) his peak years of 26-27 rebounds per game would yield closer to a
17-18% rebound%.. In other words when Wilt wasn’t doing it all his Laker years he actually had better rebound% as the years we do have statistically recorded, and not estimated, are 18%, 20%, 19.6%.. Maybe there is a mid-point between the two (his youth and when he was old) that was a bit better but I’m not going to calculate every single year lol.”

Take that with a grain of salt but it’s in the ballpark.. Thinking Basketball has Russell’s rebounding rates at “around 20%”.

Look at it this way. Rodman’s 96 season is 3rd All-Time in rebound% at 26.6. But his rpg is 15 compared to Wilt in 1962 averaging 26.. Wilt played 48 minutes in a league where his team averaged 131 possessions a game. He was on the floor for roughly 145 total rebounds per game. Rodman played nearly 33 minutes per game where his team averaged 91 possessions a game. So he’s only on the floor for roughly 62 possessions a game. He was on the floor for roughly 59 total rebounds per game. So on average Wilt had roughly 86 more rebound chances a night than Rodman did.

Given the pace of many 1960’s games exceeding 100, it’s very likely that Rodman averaged more RPP than Russell or Wilt.

I still like your stat collection here, though; these guys were on another planet.