The 2021-22 NBA regular season has come and gone, but who are the players that led each team in total dunks? And which teams had the most and the least amount of dunks?
The NBA’s 75th Anniversary season featured 11,111 total dunks that occurred in 1,230 regular-season games. After counting down the top 10 power dunks of the season, we had some additional questions about all of these dunks:
- Who are the players that led each team in total dunks?
- Which teams had the most and the least amount of dunks?
The answers are all on Basketball-Reference, and we have compiled them here in a total dunks master list, featuring the teams with the most dunks this season (starting with the fewest) and with a spotlight on the NBA players that led each team in total dunks.
30. San Antonio Spurs (251 total dunks) — Jakob Poeltl: 44 dunks
The Spurs had the fewest dunks of any team in the NBA this season at the low number of 251, and Jakob Poeltl’s 44 dunks were the fewest to lead any one team. 251 is such a low number of total dunks for one team that it is 119 dunks fewer than the league average this season of 370, and it is 296 dunks fewer than the team with the most. This is not new territory for the Spurs, not by a long shot.
Over the last 16 years dating back to the 2006-07 season, the Spurs have finished dead last in total dunks an astounding eight times, including four out of the last five seasons. And if we thought that 251 was a low number of dunks, then get this: The 2008-09 San Antonio Spurs had 75 dunks on the season. SEVENTY-FIVE. Now THAT is an insanely low number of dunks! For comparison, during the lockout-shortened season of 1998-99 when all teams played just 50 games, every single team that season had at least 100 dunks.
Meanwhile, Poeltl is actually known much more for getting dunked ON, very infamously by Ja Morant and Jalen Green (both featured in our Top 10 Power Dunks!). Despite getting power dunked on so often, Poeltl is also known more for his rim protection, finishing tied for fifth in the NBA in total blocks this season.