Atlanta Hawks center Clint Capela is having a historically significant start to the season.
The Atlanta Hawks knew what they were doing when they traded for the injured Clint Capela last season. He was part of a massive four-team trade but the Hawks essentially traded Evan Turner and a 2025 second-round draft pick for Capela and Nene. The Hawks then waived Nene that day.
It is always a risk trading for an injured player, but the Hawks had faith in the Swiss center coming back. And come back he has. In his first 11 games as a member of the Hawks, Capela is averaging 13.1 points, 13.1 rebounds, 1.4 blocks, and 1.1 assists in 28.5 minutes per game.
He has bought an instant improvement to the defensive end and is basically back to playing at the same level or better than he was prior to his injury. He is even on the verge of creating some truly impressive history with his rebounding numbers.
The Atlanta Hawks have the best version of Clint Capela.
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With so many records being set and broken and reset for scoring, it is nice to see a big man do something that only one other player has done this century. Capela has rebounded the basketball ten times or more in ten straight games.
The only other player to do this since the turn of the century is Dwight Howard and he has done it twice. Dwight collected 19 straight double-digit rebounding nights early in his career and then 10 straight while playing for the Houston Rockets in 2016.
When you think about all the great rebounders of the last 20 years, only Howard and Capela have achieved the feat. That is a tremendous achievement for Capela and he is not done yet. The next two games for the Atlanta Hawks are against the lowly Detroit Pistons and the rematch against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With the way Capela has been playing, he will go into outright second for this metric this century.