April 9, 2020

  • Royce YoungESPN Staff Writer

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    • Covers the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder for ESPN.com

Editor'southward note: This story was originally published on April xix, 2019.

IN OKLAHOMA Metropolis'S locker room on April five, Russell Westbrook took his usual identify in front of a blank whiteboard for his postgame media availability. He had his new favorite postgame prop with him -- a cup of ice water -- and answered questions about the Thunder's much-needed win over the Detroit Pistons.

Later on a handful of questions, right before his near-two-minute session wrapped, he was asked nearly equally an afterthought about another historical mark he merely accomplished: a third consecutive season averaging a triple-double.

Westbrook shrugged and started his respond with a heavy "uh," and paused. He then went into his standard triple-double-related respond: how he's blessed, how he's humbled, how he's thankful to play the game he loves.

"I do what I do every unmarried nighttime, regardless of what everyone says, what they phone call information technology, what they say," Westbrook said, an apparent reference to the stat-padding accusations that follow him around. He thanked his teammates, past and present, for making his job easy.

He was asked about when the milestone will hit him -- averaging a triple-double three consecutive seasons.

"I simply take it 1 mean solar day at a time," he began, seeming to stick with the typical respond for these kind of questions. And then he inverse grade.

"Information technology'll hitting me at some point," Westbrook said. "Like information technology'south gonna hit everybody else in this room, too."

He shook the water ice in his loving cup, gave a subtle side-eye and walked out. Point taken.

And so, why hasn't it hitting us? Where were the nightly Westbrook trackers, the deep dives into history, the artsy mag covers this fourth dimension effectually? A feat that was in one case accounted unattainable had just been captured -- for the third straight time.

It'due south Westbrook'south own fault, actually. He kind of broke the triple-double.

Iii ROUND NUMBERS take become the career bullet point, the kind of operation a player might want the game ball from or at least some signed box scores. Information technology's beyond just the appeal of a catchy proper name: triple-double. It's an illustration of a complete and total impact on the game -- scoring, rebounding, passing. It's basketball's version of a five-tool actor.

During Westbrook'south first half-dozen seasons, he had 8 triple-doubles. Each one felt like another stride in a superstar trajectory. During that span, the rest of the NBA posted a total of 188. In 2014-15, Westbrook had 11. In 2015-16 -- Kevin Durant's terminal season with OKC -- Westbrook had 18 and started to gather attention (he matched Magic Johnson'southward total from 1981-82). That flavor, the rest of the NBA had 57.

Triple-doubles were on the ascension, and Westbrook had become synonymous with the stat: Over the by three seasons, Westbrook put up 101 triple-doubles. The rest of the NBA: 251.

Three numbers in the box score don't stand out similar they used to -- there's triple-double fatigue. Imagine if a baseball thespian hitting for the wheel every other game, or batted .400 three directly seasons.

A triple-double is flat-out hard to get, yet Westbrook has normalized the way we talk about it.

Each one Westbrook records, though, even so includes plenty of eye rolls, with skeptics maxim he's simply stat-padding, or that it's just a matter of arbitrary numbers that don't mean anything.

The Thunder had a rocky twelvemonth but hit a stride midseason that had everyone around the league fearing them. Paul George was ascending as an MVP candidate and Westbrook was driving the team. It was right in the middle of another Westbrook streak, when he made history with 11 consecutive games with a triple-double, breaking Wilt Chamberlain's record of nine.

The streak was big news, some other passing of an all-time great for Westbrook. Simply the spotlight was nothing compared to the attention that followed him around two seasons ago.

A COUPLE OF WEEKS earlier Christmas in 2016, the spotter was on. Westbrook was picking upwardly triple-doubles in bunches -- three in a row, five in a row, seven in a row.

Westbrook was pacing to not just average a triple-double for the offset fourth dimension since Oscar Robertson in 1961-62, but he was doubling down and had a chance to catch a seemingly unbreakable mark: Robertson's NBA-record 41 triple-doubles that same season.

Westbrook got No. 42 in Denver in Game No. eighty, setting up teammate Semaj Christon for a corner 3. The shot cut Denver's pb to 10 with four minutes to go. With history in hand, Westbrook scored the Thunder's final xv points, including a 36-footer at the buzzer that won the game 106-105.

The shot eliminated the Nuggets from playoff contention, but the oversupply gave Westbrook, maybe Denver's least-favorite opposing histrion, a standing ovation anyway. The shot, the stats, the storyline -- Durant had left for Gold State the summer earlier -- all pushed Westbrook over the edge in the minds of MVP voters.

The next season, Westbrook was going to need to grab something like 70 boards in the final five games to hitting the ten-rebound-per-game marker. He grabbed 76, including 20 on the final night of the flavor to assure a 2d consecutive year averaging a triple-double. It sort of sneaked up on anybody, more novelty than history.

This season, Westbrook clinched it on that early April night against the Pistons, with iii games to spare. It was never really in dubiousness -- he'd been averaging a triple-double for months. It became a relative footnote to the season.

Oh hey, did you know Russell Westbrook is averaging a triple-double over again?

Setting up George'south game-winning 3 against Houston on April 9, a shot that effectively kept the Thunder out of the 8-seed, Westbrook recorded his 34th triple-double of the 2018-xix flavour, the 3rd-most e'er backside himself and The Big O. There were a few moments where Westbrook's triple-doubles got our attention again, such as when he passed Wilt with his 11 straight or when he went 20-20-21 against the Lakers -- only the second always twenty-20-xx game (aye, Wilt has the other).

"I call up the fact that he has done this three years in a row, people don't understand what has happened," bus Billy Donovan said. "And I'm shocked that they don't talk most it.

"And I know they're [just] numbers, and I get all that stuff, but in terms of the historic office of the game, people are going to look back in fourth dimension, and I think what he has done will be more appreciated later on than it is right at present."

AS THE THUNDER'Southward kickoff-round serial shifts to Oklahoma City, they sit in a 2-0 hole against the Portland Trail Blazers. Westbrook played a solid Game 1, resolutely setting up teammates who couldn't make anything. He all the same finished with 24-ten-x, his 9th career postseason triple-double. In Game two, he was a rebound shy of another ane.

Since the 2016-17 flavour, Westbrook is about averaging a triple-double in the playoffs, too -- 30.8 points, xi.5 rebounds and nine.ii assists. The Thunder are 3-ten in those games. In his 138 career regular-season triple-doubles, the Thunder are 110-28, a shimmering case of the value those 3 round numbers do seem to have. But since Westbrook's career started, the Thunder are 5-4 in the playoffs when he records a triple-double, and only 1-three since Durant left. There's no great explanation for it, but it'due south the kind of thing that gets fastened to historical résumés.

Westbrook proudly repeats that he plays the aforementioned way every night, and that kind of approach is what fuels the consistency it requires to produce a triple-double. Teammates marvel at the concrete resolve and rigorous focus Westbrook plays with every unmarried game. But, for any reason, the triple-double hasn't translated to wins in the playoffs.

Westbrook projects a carefree attitude when it comes to his own legacy, but equally he showed the nighttime he clinched the triple-double season a third straight time, at some signal, he would like the respect he feels he deserves.

Winning in the playoffs is what earns that above all and would exist the premium validation of the Westbrook Way. But averaging a triple-double once is a celebrated achievement. Doing it again, and so once again, is the kind of never-before-seen history that might demand some time to process.

"He'll go downward every bit a Hall of Famer, ane of the best," George said of Westbrook. "Nobody, I don't believe, will exist able to match that or beat out that.

"Yous've got to be wired a sure mode on a nightly basis to be able to compete at that level. He'southward special."