By Geoff Lepper
48minutes.net

Warriors forward Brandan Wright is 6-foot-10 and endowed with a 7-foot-3 3/4 wingspan that was just a half-inch short of matching that of the No. 1 pick in his draft class, Greg Oden.

So why is it that Wright can’t seem to put those tools to use fixing the Warriors’ recurring problems on the defensive glass?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Warriors’ historically bad defensive rebounding rate (they’re on pace to post the league’s worst DRR since the 1999-2000 Mavericks) and Golden State has barely ticked the meter in seven games since then, upping their mark from 67.0 to 67.1 percent.

There has been some interesting individual movement, however, as charted here:

Marco Belinelli’s minus-1.8 drop is fairly staggering, but the most distressing item, if you’re a Warriors fan, a Warriors coach or, say, a second-year Warriors forward out of North Carolina, is the erosion of Wright’s defensive rebounding. He now ranks behind Ronny Turiaf (not a huge problem, given Ronny’s improvement of late) and even Corey Maggette, which is a blazing, 40-by-40-foot red flag, given how badly Maggette fared on the boards on his one healthy leg.

Shockingly, according to data at 82games.com, the Warriors are 4.1 percent worse at defensive rebounding with Wright on the floor (63.1 to 67.2). The only guy on the team with a worse differential than that is Turiaf (62.9 to 67.6).

The problem came back into focus after the Warriors were ripped yet again by opposing rebounders — this time for 14 offensive boards and 25 second-chance points by Oklahoma City a 107-100 victory Wednesday for the NBA’s worst team.

Jeff Green had five offensive boards, and Chris Wilcox had four. Wright, meanwhile, had just three defensive rebounds, and while part of that was due to a disparity in minutes — Green played 43:47, Wilcox 36:01 and Wright 19:58 — that’s not the whole story.

Here’s a collection of observations on the wrongs of Wright’s rebounding against OKC:

1, 11:17: Wright doesn’t get credit for one, but it sure looks like he blocks Green. In any case, the miss ticks off Wright’s right hand, although it’s eventually scooped up by Belinelli.

1, 10:08: Kevin Durant beats Belinelli to the R baseline, requiring Andris Biedrins to rotate over and close off the lane. When Biedrins leaves his man, Robert Swift, Wright is stationed about 10 feet from the hoop, looking over his left shoulder at the unfolding play while reaching…