Russell Westbrook has a pretty incredible 18 triple-doubles this season, tying Magic Johnson for the most in any NBA season since the 1960s.
He was especially special at stuffing the stat sheet in the month of March, tying Michael Jordan for the most triple doubles in a single month in NBA history.
Ice Cube would be proud.
When you dive even deeper into the numbers, as FiveThirtyEight.com did, and consider the pace of play in the 2015-16 season and the amount of possessions when compared to Magic’s era in the 1980s and especially Oscar Robertson’s triple double heyday in the 1960s, you see that Westbrook may be the most prolific triple double machine the league has ever had.
According to the article Westbrook is one of eight players to ever average a triple-double per 100 possessions for a season:
If you add up his averages of points, rebounds and assists per 100 possessions he averages a cumulative of 60 for all three categories combined.
The articles uses this data and the average pace of the player’s specific team as well as the league in the season that is being measured. According to their data, Westbrook’s 2015 and 2016 season are the two most impressive in NBA history from a triple double perspective.
While Westbrook won’t end up averaging a triple double like Big O or end up with the number of career triple doubles of the Magic man, he may well have been the most prolific stat sheet stuffer in NBA history these past two seasons.
In any other season he would be the undisputed choice for league MVP but when you have a guy averaging 30-6-5 and shooting 50-40-90 for maybe the greatest regular season team of all time, this is the rare year where Westbrook won’t take home the league’s greatest individual prize.
