With about as much fanfare and national coverage as a Tuesday night Lakers game, Russell Westbrook quietly broke the NBA’s all time record for career triple-doubles last week. A record that had stood since the great Oscar Robertson called it a career in 1974. Not only did Westbrook take down a nearly 50 year old record, he’s going to completely rewrite the record books by the time he calls it a career.
Only 32 years old, Russ has shown no signs of slowing down in recent years. And with the advent of sports science, and medical procedures, athletes are able to play at the highest levels, far longer than their peers of the past could ever dream of. Meaning that Westbrook is not only a virtual lock to become the first player to record 200 triple doubles in a career, but he may even flirt with the 250 mark.
So why is it that for all the reasons that Robertson was heralded, Westbrook seems to be loathed? Oscar’s legendary 1961-62 season where he became the first player in NBA history to average a triple double (posting a 30.8pts/12.5rb/11.4ast stat line) was the talk of hoops heads for generations, with some even calling it the best season for a point guard ever.
Enter Russell Westbrook. A 6’3”, 200lb ball of muscle, that runs like he’s been shot out of a cannon from tip off until the final buzzer. When he won the MVP award in 2017 people were enamored with his chase of the “Big O’s” seemingly untouchable record. Yet as quickly as the praise was heaped on Russ, the pendulum seemed to swing the other way even quicker.
The novelty of a triple double season suddenly was no longer in vogue. What only a season before earned him the title of most valuable player, shifted to Russ being painted as a “stat chaser”, more concerned about personal success than team goals. This glosses over the fact that his once formidable OKC Thunder team (with the likes of KD, Russ, and Harden leading the team to the finals) had been gutted in recent years, and was never truly a threat to win a title once Durant took his talents to Golden State.
So why the shift? Well for starters, Brodie has never been the warmest of interviews when it comes to media appearances. And for better or for worse, the media largely shapes the public’s perception of a player. Their narratives can make an MVP case for a player, or paint them as a villain over the course of as little as a few weeks worth of hit pieces in widely read publications.
Then there’s the self inflicted wounds as well. Nights where the game was already well in the bag, and suddenly Westbrook would box out a teammate for a rebound, or become overly passive when his team needed him to be aggressive (as one of the few remaining scorers on the Thunder roster) because he needed another assist or two. Make no mistake, these nights happened, such as below where Russ gives up multiple high percentage scoring opportunities because he needed a few more assists for a triple double:
That being said, these nights tended to be the exception rather than the rule. First and foremost Russ is a competitor (some teammates and coaches may say he’s almost too competitive at times) so he never intentionally sacrificed wins in order to put up numbers. But when your team is down 15 with under 10 to play and have been getting dominated all night, maybe your focus shifts ever so slightly. Does it make it right? No, but does praising the player one year for doing that same thing to the point where you give him the MVP award, and then immediately chastising him the next make sense either?
If you think LeBron has never had a night or two where he’s clearly chasing stats then I don’t know what to tell you. So once again, the double standard is confusing at best, and flat out infuriating to the players at worst. Wrapping up the 2020-21 season, Westbrook has now completed his 4th year of averaging a triple double. Think about that for a moment.
In the history of the NBA there had only been one player to ever average a triple double over the course of a season. Westbrook has now accomplished that feat four times. Yet aside from 2017, when triple doubles were “cool”, it’s gone largely unnoticed. Although not everyone is oblivious to Russ’ on court feats.
In an interview with NBC Sports, Wizards coach Scott Brooks told reporters “I used to always say he’s going to probably go down as the third-best point guard ever, but I think he’s passed one and he’s going to go down as probably the second-best…What he does, there’s no point guard that has ever done it. Nobody. Nobody.”
While this is debatable to say the least, it does at least provide context as to how important Russ’ contributions are to a team fighting for its playoff life. Perhaps it was Yahoo’s Ben Rohrbach that best summed up Westbrook’s career when he said “Everything in the public discourse about Westbrook’s career comes with a but.
He has more triple-doubles than anyone, but … triple-doubles are arbitrary statistics. He has two scoring titles, but … he can’t shoot. He is working on a third assist crown, but … he is about to lead the league in turnovers for a fourth time. He has more rebounds than any point guard ever not named Jason Kidd, but … he’s a stat-hunter. He has never missed the playoffs, but … he also hasn’t won a title. He tries his ass off, but … he plays out of control.” And therein lies the problem with Westbrook. Any argument you can make about why he’s a truly special talent, can also be turned into an argument against him. In that regard, Westbrook truly is an enigma.
Many of the things that separate Russ from his peers are things that don’t show up on a boxscore. His athleticism, his hustle, his work ethic. None of these are things that have annual awards handed out for them, but if there were, Russ would be a perennial finalist. Which is why Russ supporters are so quick to default to the triple doubles as a sign of his greatness. If you won’t reward the player for unquantifiable things, then you have to at least give him his props for the things that are statistically measurable.
Yes, triple doubles are far more common now than at any other point in league history. But a large degree of that has to do with Russell himself and his style of play. Professional sports are a copycat based industry. What works for a team or a player is going to be duplicated to death. Which is why following Steph Curry’s MVP reign, suddenly guards were pulling up from deeper than ever before. Why suddenly following Giannis’ MVP campaigns, big men are once more determining factors in games again following a decade long hiatus from relevance. And it’s why following Russ’ MVP season, suddenly triple doubles became “the thing” that players were chasing night in night out.
Which brings us full circle back to the original question of why Russ is painted as a stat padder, and Robertson’s season remains as pure as freshly fallen snow. In the end, it boils down to which narrative you’ve chosen to believe. Supporters will point to the triple doubles as a reason for his greatness. Detractors will point towards the triple doubles as stat chasing at the expense of winning a championship. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone that follows basketball closely and has a neutral opinion of Westbrook. Yet wherever you fall on the spectrum, the one undeniable thing, is that outside of Lebron, Curry, and maybe Giannis, no single player has had a bigger impact on basketball or the way it’s played in the last 5 years than Russell Westbrook. How history chooses to remember him however is an entirely different question.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner